12 December 2011
During a debate about neurological conditions in the House of Lords last week, Earl Howe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, mentioned CFS/M.E. in the context of the new NHS Outcomes Framework.
As previously reported, the Framework lists five areas (‘domains’) of national outcomes that the NHS should aim to improve, which are: (1) preventing people from dying prematurely; (2) enhancing quality of life for people with long-term conditions; (3) helping people to recover from episodes of ill health or following injury; (4) ensuring that people have a positive experience of care; (5) treating and caring for people in a safe environment; and protecting them from avoidable harm.
Earl Howe said: “The NHS outcomes framework will ensure that commissioners, providers and others are better able to identify those things that can drive up performance in the NHS by providing a focused set of national outcome goals and supporting indicators that patients, the public and Parliament will be able to use to judge the overall progress of the NHS. It will inform the Secretary of State's mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board and, in turn, to the NHS commissioning framework.
“Let me give a few examples of the relevant indicators. In domain 1 - preventing people from dying prematurely - the overarching indicator is about mortality from causes considered amenable to healthcare. Epilepsy is one of the conditions where there is room for significant progress. Domain 2 - enhancing quality of life for people with long-term conditions - addresses such issues as the proportion of people feeling supported to manage their condition, which is important for people with conditions such as CFS/M.E., acquired brain injury, MS and motor neurone disease.”
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