NHS Consultation

There is a period of consultation (ending 5th February, 2010) about suggestions for revising the NHS Constitution.

This consultation proposes (using the Secretary of State's power under the NHS Act 2006) to revise the NHS Constitution to incorporate the following rights:

  1. treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from a GP referral and to be seen by a cancer specialist within 2 weeks from a GP referral, or where this is not possible, for the NHS to take reasonable steps to offer a range of alternative providers; and
  2. NHS Health Checks for those aged 40 to 74 to assess their risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease.

This consultation document also welcomes your views on areas where the government believes that it will soon be able to offer rights, such as dentistry, evening and weekend access to GPs, personal health budgets and the ability to choose to die at home. In September, the Prime Minister announced the government's intention to develop rapid access to diagnostic tests. The consultation document provides more detail of what a right to those tests would mean.

The consultation document is lengthy, and quite rightly includes the research and development informing the structures of these proposed new rights. However, the on-line response form is here and is much shorter.

A good overview article on the NHS constitution, this consultation and its application is here. This article also links to the on-line response form.