Health and Social Care Board

Last updated

The Health and Social Care Board is an organisation responsible for the commissioning of health services for the people of Northern Ireland. Its current chief executive is Ms. Valerie Watts. [1]

Contents

Creation

The Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 [2] followed the Review of Public Administration in 2007 and led to a reorganisation of health and social care delivery in Northern Ireland. Prior to enactment of this legislation, healthcare delivery in Northern Ireland was provided by 4 health boards, 11 community and social services trusts and 7 hospital trusts. This Act [2] established the Health and Social Care Board and five Health and Social Care Trusts which are responsible for the delivery of primary, secondary and community health care.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of the Health and Social Care board is to work in partnership with Northern Ireland's Public Health Agency to commission services, allocate resources and improve services for all people of Northern Ireland. Its commissioning is supported by five local commissioning groups that are geographically linked to five health and social care trusts. [3] The Board is also directly responsible for community health care provided by general practitioners, dentists, opticians and community pharmacists. It reports directly to the Department of Health and the current minister responsible is Robin Swann MLA.

Transforming Your Care

Transforming Your Care was a review of health and social care commissioned in 2011 by then Health Minister Edwin Poots and published in December 2011. [4] The Health and Social Care Board are responsible for 72 of 99 recommendations [5] made in the report.

Potential Abolition

In March 2016, then health minister Simon Hamilton announced that the Health and Social Care Board would be abolished [6] and that commissioning responsibilities would be transferred directly to the Department of Health. His decision was met with criticism from both politicians and health professionals. [7] Currently, the Board is still in position and no further plans for its future have been made.

Related Research Articles

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care UK government cabinet minister

The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, eighth in the ministerial ranking.

Department of Health and Social Care United Kingdom ministerial government department

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is the UK government department responsible for government policy on health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. It oversees the English National Health Service (NHS). The department is led by the secretary of state for health and social care with three ministers of state and three parliamentary under-secretaries of state.

Northern Ireland is divided into 11 districts for local government purposes. In Northern Ireland, local councils do not carry out the same range of functions as those in the rest of the United Kingdom; for example they have no responsibility for education, road-building or housing. Their functions include planning, waste and recycling services, leisure and community services, building control and local economic and cultural development. The collection of rates is handled centrally by the Land and Property Services agency of the Northern Ireland Executive.

Strategic health authorities (SHA) were part of the structure of the National Health Service in England between 2002 and 2013. Each SHA was responsible for managing performance, enacting directives and implementing health policy as required by the Department of Health at a regional level.

NHS primary care trust

Primary care trusts (PCTs) were part of the National Health Service in England from 2001 to 2013. PCTs were largely administrative bodies, responsible for commissioning primary, community and secondary health services from providers. Until 31 May 2011, they also provided community health services directly. Collectively PCTs were responsible for spending around 80 per cent of the total NHS budget. Primary care trusts were abolished on 31 March 2013 as part of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, with their work taken over by clinical commissioning groups.

NHS Wales Publicly-funded healthcare system in Wales

NHS Wales is the publicly funded healthcare system in Wales, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.

NHS Scotland Publicly-funded healthcare system in Scotland

NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates fourteen territorial NHS boards across Scotland, seven special non-geographic health boards and NHS Health Scotland.

Health and Social Care (HSC) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland. Although having been created separately to the National Health Service (NHS), it is nonetheless considered a part of the overall national health service in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of public health and social care services across Northern Ireland. It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Department of Health is a devolved Northern Irish government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister of Health.

Healthcare in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each having their own systems of publicly funded healthcare, funded by and accountable to separate governments and parliaments, together with smaller private sector and voluntary provision. As a result of each country having different policies and priorities, a variety of differences have developed between these systems since devolution.

National Health Service Act 1946 United Kingdom legislation

The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948 and created the National Health Service in England and Wales thus being the first implementation of the Beveridge model. Though the title 'National Health Service' implies a single health service for the United Kingdom, in reality one NHS was created for England and Wales accountable to the Secretary of State for Health, with a separate NHS created for Scotland accountable to the Secretary of State for Scotland by the passage of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947. Similar health services in Northern Ireland were created by the Northern Ireland Parliament through the Health Services Act 1948.

Regional health authorities in Manitoba

Regional health authorities (RHAs) are Manitoba's independent governing bodies for healthcare delivery and regulation. RHAs are overseen by their respective boards, who have responsibility for the mandate, resources, and performance of the health authority, responding directly to the provincial Minister of Health, Seniors and Active Living.

National Health Service (England) Publicly-funded healthcare system in England

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Health and Social Care Act 2012 United Kingdom legislation

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service in England to date. It removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Secretary of State for Health, which the post had carried since the inception of the NHS in 1948. It abolished primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities (SHAs) and transferred between £60 billion and £80 billion of "commissioning", or healthcare funds, from the abolished PCTs to several hundred clinical commissioning groups, partly run by the general practitioners (GPs) in England but also a major point of access for private service providers. A new executive agency of the Department of Health, Public Health England, was established under the act on 1 April 2013.

Clinical commissioning group

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England. The announcement that GPs would take over this commissioning role was made in the 2010 white paper "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS". This was part of the government's stated desire to create a clinically-driven commissioning system that was more sensitive to the needs of patients. The 2010 white paper became law under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in March 2012. At the end of March 2013 there were 211 CCGs, but a series of mergers had reduced the number to 135 by April 2020.

John Appleby, FAcSS is a British economist. He was chief economist at the King's Fund from 1998 to 2016 and is now Director of Research and Chief Economist at the Nuffield Trust.

Northern Ireland has differing legislation and policy in relation to disability than in other areas of the UK, due to the various governmental powers and competencies that are devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Healthcare in Cornwall, United Kingdom, is now the responsibility of Kernow clinical commissioning group, a National Health Service (NHS) organisation set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England. As far as the NHS is concerned, Cornwall includes the Isles of Scilly.

Healthcare in Northumberland, since 2013, is the responsibility of the Northumberland, Newcastle Gateshead and North Tyneside clinical commissioning groups.

References

  1. "Board of Directors - HSCB" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  3. "Integrated care in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales" (PDF). Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  4. "Transforming Your Care A Review of Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland" (PDF). Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  5. "Update on Reform | Transforming Your Care" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  6. "Simon Hamilton announces 'biggest health system shake-up' in five years - BBC News" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  7. "Health and Social Care Board to be abolished by NI minister - BBC News" . Retrieved 10 June 2016.