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Health in West Sussex

Health for All Ages - creating healthy opportunities for West Sussex Communities

A Programme to integrate health and care in Western Sussex
   

Information included on this website is not a substitute for the advice of your doctor

A vision statement should describe an ideal view of the desired scenario and should cover the whole business pathway, including:

·          How your business/purpose is promoted

·          How the needs of your customers are assessed and translated into business priorities

·          How your services are tailored to customer access

·          How you continually improve the quality of your product or service

·          How you demonstrate your performance

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A Vision of Health

 

There is a National Health Programme, supported by Community Health Programmes covering every community that are well led, well-supervised, well-managed and have sustainable development plans and good accountability arrangements.

 

1.       Leadership for Health - There is a clear vision for health backed by inspirational leadership.

 

·         Everyone is given free access to tailored information and advice about health.

·         Confidentiality of personal health information is guaranteed.

·         The safety of healthcare is paramount.

 

2.       Supervision of Health Assessments - The Programme is well equipped to deliver the vision.

 

·         Community Health Programmes clearly identify local needs and specific priorities and objectives to meet them.

·         Regular health screening and assessment is available to everyone.

·         Individuals and the State share responsibility for health.

 

3.       Management of Access to Health Services - The Programme has a stable baseline.

 

·         Access to emergency advice and/or treatment is available immediately and access to non-emergency advice and/or treatment is available, according to clinically assessed need, within a maximum of 1 month.

·         A wide choice of practitioners and providers is available to everyone within easy reach of home/school/work and around the clock.

·         Health and social care are provided as one service.

 

4.       Planning for Quality Improvement - The Programme has a sustainable development plan.

 

·         Health is a major part of the National Learning Curriculum and health in the workplace is subject to specific standards.

·         Health services are provided safely and all health practitioners are accredited and regularly updated.

 

5.       Accountability for Health Improvement - The Programme can demonstrate added value.

 

·         Opportunities to influence decisions about health services are readily and freely accessible to everyone.

·         Public accounts clearly relate health spending to health benefits.

 

 

A Vision of Health Care for the Next Millennium

·      A future in which we adopt a funding system that has as its purpose to spread the risk of the few among the resources of the many;

·      A system that does not abandon the sick in the time of their gravest need, nor add confusion or distress at a time of physical, emotional, and financial vulnerability;

·      A community that does not ask for any parent to choose between food and clothing for their children or basic medical services for themselves, or for their children;

·      A system of care in which the fundamental priorities are set by the people who are subject to illness, not by those who profit from their care;

·      A health care financing system in which the priorities of the individual count for more than do the decisions of their employers;

·      A system in which losing one's job or ability to work does not mean the loss of access to affordable health care.

·      I see a future in which we understand that managed care is vastly better than unmanaged and squandered care; a future in which we affirm that managed care is a way of effectively treating illness, not only a way of managing costs.

·      In this future, reason and evidence will prevail against emotionalism or unsubstantiated claims. It will be understood and accepted that over-treatment may be just as bad as under-treatment.

·      In this future health care system, the compassionate heart of our community has come to recognize that unneeded or ineffective care given to one person creates a diminished opportunity for another in need.

·      I envision a future where medical services are provided because they are necessary and effective, not just because they will be paid for;

·      A system and a people that acknowledge that the presence of a want does not equate with the existence of a need;

·      A system that tends to the sick but does not pander to the frivolous, nor enrich the greedy;

·      A system that acknowledges futility but does not abandon hope, and that recognizes the dignity of the human condition;

·      A system in which limited tangible resources are augmented with limitless compassion.

·      We will have a system that recognizes the magic within the therapeutic relationship, but does not waste valuable resources on the whimsical, the fashionable, or the fraudulent.

·      We will have a system that competes to return functioning people to their homes, their workplaces, and their schools instead of competing to maximize the revenues of a health care industry.

·      We must have a system in which a patient can disclose his or her most intimate secrets without fear that those will be used against his or her interests, or for the personal profit of another.

·      In our system, those given the privilege of serving the sick are permitted to do so by virtue of the good they can do, not by the strength of their lobbies, nor the sophistication of their marketing.

·      I do not think we will have to look far or wait long for this future. It exists already in our better collective senses. It is what we would have for our children, for our parents, and for ourselves. Let us therefore gauge proposed reforms against these principles and others like them. If we can generate a collective vision of where we would like to go, surely we can make it happen.

Peter Hasselbacher, MD
Louisville, Ky

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