The Government plans to change the way that healthcare is delivered. It proposes that care will be provided closer to home and whenever possible outside hospital, this process being supported by practice-based commissioning and world-class commissioning.
The Department of Health recommends that 'specialty organisations and Royal Colleges should define clinically safe pathways that provide the right care in the right setting, with the right equipment performed by the appropriate skilled person'.
A joint paper with the Royal Colleges of General Practitioners and Paediatrics and Child Health shows that this is exactly what the medical profession has been developing: creating Teams without Walls, delivering services that cross traditional primary/ secondary, hospital/community coungaries to best meet the needs of patients.
Teams without walls (pdf 117kb opens in new window)