Section

Public Services

Thumb

NHS Foundation Trusts - Governance Review

Peter Hunt of Mutuo and Chris Ham of the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, were commissioned to review the membership governance of NHS Foundation Trusts. Their report, published in July 2008 gives an interesting insight into how membership is beginning to influence NHS Foundation Trusts.

Thumb

What is the role of the Governors of an NHS foundation trust?

Foundation trusts are not only new, but their governance arrangements are novel.

Thumb

NHS Reform: Consumerism or citizenship

Reform of the NHS is progressing rapidly, but it is difficult to discern a clear underlying theme or sense of direction of that reform.

Thumb

In The Public Interest - The role of mutuals in providing public services

New mutuals have been established in a range of public service areas. How do they compare with state providers and what should be done to facilitate more mutuals?

Thumb

Education - Co-operation and Learning

Since it came to power in 1997, the Labour government has made it clear that education is at the top of the agenda. Many reforms have taken place since then, with the most recent legislation encouraging greater engagement with the private sector.

This report argues that education is too important to be left only to state or private sector provision. We believe that there is now a need and an opportunity to develop new solutions and models of service delivery that can unleash the benefits of commitment from a wider range of stakeholder groups. In particular this report draws upon international experience to demonstrate the benefits that derive from the direct involvement in governance of schools of a range of stakeholders and their success in developing a vocationally based curriculum.

Co-operation and mutual enterprise is an under-realised resource for those interested in twenty-first century learning and teaching. It is also true that learning and teaching is an under-realised opportunity for those in twenty-first century co-operative and mutual enterprise.

Thumb

Delivering Care on Call

This document seeks to provide a clear guide for Primary Care Trusts and GP Co-operatives considering the future of Out of Hours (OOH) primary care provision.

It builds on the proposals put forward in ‘Care on Call – a mutual approach to out of hours primary care services,’ (Mutuo, January 2004) that new mutual providers may be created to ensure that OOH cover is continued under the new GMS contract.

It outlines the main practical issues that PCTs and GP Co-ops must consider in providing continuing care.

It describes the practical steps to follow in establishing the framework for the new mutual OOH provider.

This includes a methodical approach to dealing with questions around procurement, the establishment of a new corporate entity, and practical issues around the transition of services to the new provider.

The process that is proposed in this document has been road tested with a number of pathfinder projects, where this option is currently being implemented.

Additional information on the mutual sector, the benefits of mutual structures and a comparison between the Company Limited by Guarantee and Industrial & Provident Societies is published in the appendices.

PCTs and GP Co-ops requiring further advice and assistance are recommended to discuss their needs with the partners listed at the rear of the document.

Thumb

Care on Call

This publication coincided with the implementation of the new GP contract in April 2004, which meant that doctors were no longer obliged to provide out-of-hours (OOH) cover and could choose to opt out of the service entirely. Under the new contract arrangements, the responsibility to ensure OOH cover is available for all patients, transfers to local primary care trusts (PCT).

This publication seeks to encourage the provision of out of hours cover from local community mutual organisations. New bodies will be established, with a membership drawn from GPs, other healthcare staff, administrative staff, and potentially patients from the local community. Existing GP Co-operatives will also be encouraged to transfer to these new arrangements.

In researching this publication, Mutuo facilitated a number of seminars that brought together representatives from GP co-operatives, PCTs, the Department of Health and the mutual sector. This publication has been informed by the discussions that took place at those events.

Thumb

Making Healthcare Mutual

Hazel Blears MP, Cliff Mills and Peter Hunt

Following Alan Milburn’s announcement that the public will be given a key role in the management - and in effect become the owners - of NHS Foundation Trusts, Health Minister Hazel Blears spells out the political philosophy behind the Government’s NHS reform programme. She draws a clear policy between the Labour movement’s co-operative roots and the Government’s new direction, and indicates that the Government is committed to extending mutual ownership across the NHS, into areas such as primary care.

Blears states that the new governance arrangements for foundation hospitals will be modelled on successful mutual and co-operative organisations, placing ownership in the hands of employees and patients and replacing decades Hazel of central State ownership with local public ownership. She illustrates that this reform programme is every bit as radical and progressive as that which created the NHS over fifty years ago, drawing on the traditions of social and community ownership that inspired the founders of the NHS, and placing a premium on local accountability for local services.

Cliff Mills explains why the Industrial and Provident Society model is ideally suited to this new approach to the ownership and governance of essential services, while Peter Hunt puts the proposed reforms in the context of a resurgence of mutuality that has the potential to transform the public sector.

Thumb

Public Service Reform - Building the Mutual State

Ed Mayo and Henrietta Moore

Mutual hospitals, non-profit schools and co-operative housing are the future for public services according to this pamphlet, the outcome of six months testing and debate on the web-based think-tank www.themutualstate.org.

Community-based services, including health, childcare, residential care, housing, leisure, crime prevention and education are ideally suited to mutual forms of governance, with the involvement of different stakeholders including employees, government and customers varying according to the nature of the service. The defining ideal is local public services designed and delivered by local stakeholders, offering accountability, flexibility and value for money.

The report calls on Government selectively to free up frontline public services, starting with health, education and local authority services to operate as independent social enterprises supported by the state rather than running them as arms of government.