24 Hours to Save the NHS

"24 hours to save the NHS". It was a political slogan but it hid a deeper question. Could the NHS survive? Could it continue to offer free health care for every citizen regardless of their ability to pay? Could the extraordinary, liberating ambition and dream of its founders 50 years before be maintained in the 21st Century - that everyone, no matter how poor or ill, should be freed from worrying about how to pay for their health care. By 2000 the NHS was in decline with falling standards and failing public support. Its supporters were beginning to question its viability, whilst its enemies were eager to catalogue its faults. Five years later we had an answer. Radical change and investment meant that the NHS had survived. Standards were improving and the NHS was expanding. Proof came from outside. Public satisfaction doubled and fewer people opted for private healthcare. Most tellingly, all the major political parties went into the 2010 general election committed to the NHS and to helping it develop and prosper. Today the question has changed. The NHS has survived but can it become sustainable at a time of austerity and as demand for its services grows? 24 hours to save the NHS shows what we can learn from the past, and describes what more we need to do to innovate for the future. It is the inside story of the last reforms written by the man charged with implementing them, and who was given unprecedented authority as both Chief Executive of the NHS and Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health. A very practical book - it describes the successes and failures as well as the pressures and the difficulties of making improvements in the fourth biggest organization in the world which employs 1.3 million people and spends GBP100 billion a year. It will be of interest to the general reader, health workers, policy makers, academics and students alike.

ISBN 0199639957   Pages 248 ISBN13 9780199639953 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 429 Publisher Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Imprint Oxford University Press   Height (mm) 229 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 163 Publication date 15 Sep 2011   Spine width (mm) 14 DEWEY 362.10942   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

Preface; 1. 24 hours to save the NHS; 2. The national and global context; 3. The NHS Plan - overview of the story; 4. Service improvement and delivery; 5. System reform; 6. The NHS workforce; 7. Knowledge, science and technology; 8. Finance and productivity; 9. Leadership; 10. Patients, health and society; 11. Conclusions and key points; 12. The future of the NHS in England; 13. Reforming and strengthening health systems around the world; 14. The global challenge; Appendix 1. Glossary of terms; Appendix 2. NHS structure; Appendix 3. Time line; Appendix 4. <"Must do>" targets in the NHS Plan; Index

24 Hours to Save the NHS is a must-read for people working in the NHS and its critics... And more importantly it leaves us with a compelling vision for the future. Health Service Journal This book comes at a critical moment in the history of the NHS. It is essential reading for politicians, policymakers, professionals, and the public - Richard Horton, Editor, The Lancet Crisp navigates clearly through the policy and the politics, and in its structure (the main points are boxed at the end ofeach chapter) and style, this resembles a textbook. If the present government does indeed care about health care - and wants to avoid a series of budget-busting hospital bailouts - its commitment should be to services, not facilities. It cannot afford to ignore Crisp's advice, and there is no time to lose. Crisps real achievement was in securing more NHS funding and making the health system in general look respectable again and one can only believe the stories he recalls of impressed patients approaching him to ask the way out of the private patients departments, only to find, to their surprise, that they were in NHS patients departments all along. It is purely a reflection, a personal account. Yet the author does not leave out criticisms of himself or his own work, and takes care to show how he learned from these. This is the book of a proud man, and that is no bad thing at all, because he knows as we all do that the NHS is treasured. LSE Blog This insightful text is well structured and readable. It highlights important lessons that were learned from these years, including that private insurance is not the solution for some of the NHS gaps, and the need to focus more on areas such as health promotion and patient engagement. Nursing Standard

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