Chapter 3: Department of Health
Aim
Transform the health and social care system so that it produces faster, fairer services that deliver better health and tackle health inequalities.
Objectives and performance targets
Objective I: improve service standards.
1. Reduce the maximum wait for an outpatient appointment to 3 months and the maximum wait for inpatient treatment to 6 months by the end of 2005, and achieve progressive further cuts with the aim of reducing the maximum inpatient and day case waiting time to
3 months by 2008.
2. Reduce to four hours the maximum wait in A&E from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge, by the end of 2004; and reduce the proportion waiting over one hour.
3. Guarantee access to a primary care professional within 24 hours and to a primary care doctor within 48 hours from 2004.
4. Ensure that by the end of 2005 every hospital appointment will be booked for the convenience of the patient, making it easier for patients and their GP's to choose the hospital and consultant that best meets their needs.
5. Enhance accountability to patients and the public and secure sustained national improvements in patient experience as measured by independently validated national surveys.
Objective II: improve health and social care outcomes for everyone.
6. Reduce substantially the mortality rates from the major killer diseases by 2010: from heart disease by at least 40 % in people under 75; from cancer by at least 20% in people under 75.
7. Improve life outcomes of adults and children with mental health problems through year on year improvements in access to crisis and CAMHS services, and reduce the mortality rate from suicide and undetermined injury by at least 20% by 2010.
8. Improve the quality of life and independence of older people so that they can live at home wherever possible, by increasing by March 2006 the number of those supported intensively to live at home to 30 % of the total being supported by social services at home or in residential care.
9. Improve life chances for children, including by:
- improving the level of education, training and employment outcomes for care leavers aged 19, so that levels for this group are at least 75% of those achieved by all young people in the same area, and at least 15% of children in care attain five good GCSEs by 2004. (The Government will review this target in the light of a Social Exclusion Unit study on improving the educational attainment of children in care.);
- narrowing the gap between the proportions of children in care and their peers who are cautioned or convicted; and
- reducing the under-18 conception rate by 50% by 2010.
10. Increase the participation of problem drug users in drug treatment programmes by 55% by 2004 and by 100% by 2008, and increase year on year the proportion of users successfully sustaining or completing treatment programmes.
11. By 2010 reduce inequalities in health outcomes by 10% as measured by infant mortality and life expectancy at birth.
Value for Money
12. Value for money in the NHS and personal social services will improve by at least 2% per annum, with annual improvements of 1% in both cost efficiency and service effectiveness.
Who is responsible for delivery?
The Secretary of State for Health is responsible for the delivery of the targets set out in this PSA.