NHS White Paper 'Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS'
- Published: 09 Jan 2012
- Source: External
- Source name: Department of Health
- RCN Staff lead: Various
- Email: policycontacts@rcn.org.uk
The downloads on this page are PDFs - see how to access PDF files.
To see more on how the RCN consulted with its members on this subject, please go to our main White Paper page.
- Read the RCN's full response to the NHS White paper (PDF 832KB).
- Read the executive summary of the RCN response to the NHS White Paper (PDF 69KB)
The Royal College of Nursing has responded to the NHS White Paper and says the scale and speed of reforms pose a significant risk to the future of the NHS in England.
The RCN welcomes the principles of the Government's White Paper, called Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS. However, it warns that if untested proposals are pushed through without winning support from staff and adequate risk assessment, they could lead to aspects of the NHS breaking up, with a potentially negative impact on patient care.
The RCN says it welcomes the principles behind the reforms and supports key elements including the focus on outcomes, choice, patient involvement, professional freedom and removal of unnecessary bureaucracy.
The RCN has also responded to a number of consultation documents directly related to the main NHS White Paper and these are provided below.
- RCN response to ‘Transparency in outcomes - a framework for the NHS’ (PDF 313KB)
- RCN response to ‘Commissioning for patients’ (PDF 139KB)
- RCN response to ‘Local democratic legitimacy in health’ (PDF 86.1KB)
- RCN response to ‘Regulating healthcare providers’ (PDF 132KB).
- RCN response to 'Achieving Equity and Excellence for Children' (PDF 59.5KB)
- RCN response to 'Greater Choice and Control' (PDF 114KB)
- RCN response to 'An Information Revolution' (PDF 116KB)
- RCN response to 'Developing the Healthcare Workforce' (PDF 151KB)
- RCN response to ‘listening’ exercise - letter to the Chariman of NHS Future Forum (PDF 651KB)
Please be aware that there are a series of key themes that run across all the documents submitted by the RCN and no individual paper should be considered in isolation. The RCN submissions contain responses to detailed consultation questions. However there are no new policy positions that are different from our main NHS White Paper response (see above).
The Government will publish additional consultation documents related to the main NHS White Paper later in the year, including on social care and patient choice. Further updates will be placed on this page following publication of these documents.
Related information
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Published date: 26 July 2010This is the factual briefing of the key themes in the NHS White Paper. To read more about how the RCN is responding to the White Paper and to take part, please vivst www.rcn.org.uk/whitepaper.
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Published date: 30 November 2010The Government is looking at the future of social care and has published two consultation documents. This briefing summarises the key points of the two documents - A Vision for Adult Social Care and Transparency in outcomes: a framework for adult social care. The RCN will shortly be asking for your views on the consultations to help inform the RCN response.
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Published date: 9 September 2009The RCN welcomes this consultation paper which aims to set out the Conservative Party's vision for the future development of nursing. The paper addresses some key themes for nursing and many of the issues raised are of mutual concern to the RCN.
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Published date: 23 November 2011The RCN has responded to the Government plans to reduce red tape by cutting unnecessary data collections across the NHS that will save millions by releasing administrative and clerical resources to better support front line patient care.
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Published date: 13 December 2010The Department of Health has launched two documents relating to the future of adult social services in England\; A vision for adult social care: Capable communities and active citizens, and A consultation on proposals - Transparency in outcomes: a framework for adult social care, both of which the RCN will be responding to.