Reconfiguration has played, and continues to play, a major part inensuring services are consistently responsive to developing localcircumstances.
Two reports by Sheila Shribman, the UK's children's health tsar, haveoutlined the way in which reconfiguration and health reforms will impacton services for children (Children Now, 14-20 February).
Making it Better for Mother and Baby and Making it Better for Childrenand Young People make the clinical case for reconfiguration. Theyoutline how it will change the way care is provided so patients havegreater choice and better access to local services. The aim is to beable to provide highly-specialised care as well as more generalhealthcare services closer to home.
In addition to improving healthcare services for children, there is alsothe broader, more long-term agenda of Every Child Matters. The NHS isvery involved in this and healthcare organisations are supportive of itsobjectives. A partnership approach is critical if we are going toimprove the wellbeing of children.
However, there are potential barriers. The largest of these is that themajority of NHS goals and targets are short term. This makes it moredifficult for the NHS to support the long-term objectives of Every ChildMatters.
In the future, the NHS Confederation would like to see NHS organisationsbeing given the opportunity to plan on a longer-term basis than 12months.
Year-on-year planning achieves very little and to create the flexibilityneeded to embark upon joint initiatives like Every Child Mattersorganisations need to be able to plan over five to 10 years.
The big public health issues - diabetes, obesity and heart problems -all have their roots in childhood. We can only solve these problems ifwe're able to have the opportunity to engage with our partners. The NHSneeds to be given more flexibility around the use of its resources, aswell as planning, if it's to build the long-term effective relationshipsnecessary to ensure our children's children have the healthy future theydeserve.
