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'Ambitious agenda'

Announcing the Mandate, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "The Mandate sets an ambitious agenda to transform patient care and we expect NHS England to demonstrate significant progress against all the objectives by March 2015...

"The Government has kept changes to an essential minimum to ensure the refreshed Mandate remains strategic, outcomes-focused and affordable within NHS England's budget."

Member concerns

The comments come in response to member concerns, raised by the Confederation in September, that numerous revisions to the Mandate had 'concerned' and 'disappointed' NHS leaders and ignored previous commitments to keep changes between mandates to a minimum. 

The NHS Confederation has yesterday said it is pleased the Government has responded to and implemented many of the key points raised in its response to proposals for the refreshed Mandate.

Welcome changes

The Confederation has welcomed:

• that overall, the final version of the Mandate is more strategic and more focused on health outcomes 
• the focus on strengthening local autonomy so that NHS organisation have the freedom to innovate and drive improvements in patient care 
• amendments that reflect our view that the Vulnerable Older People's Plan cannot deliver improvements through primary care alone but rather in addition to integrated out-of-hospital care for the wider population 
• the focus on reaching parity of esteem for mental and physical health, particularly in relation to those in crisis
• the indication that proposals for recovering costs from overseas visitors will need to be cost effective, given the financial challenge facing members. 

Summary for members

The Confederation has produced a summary for members on the Mandate's key points and objectives.

Download the summary to find out everything you need to know.

Find out more

Access the Government's Mandate from the Department of Health (DH) website.

Read our submission to the DH's consultation on the refreshed Mandate.