This Nuffield Trust ‘snapshot’ survey of health leaders tests views towards the Government’s NHS reforms.

1. Snapshot survey of health
leaders on NHS reform
Survey results
1 March 2012

2. Background
• At this crucial time in the reform agenda, the Nuffield Trust
conducted a ‘snapshot’ survey of health leaders to test their
views and attitudes towards the Government’s NHS reforms.
• The survey was sent to health leaders and commentators
spanning Whitehall, Westminster, local government,
academia, the private and independent sectors and the
media. All respondents either attended, or were invited to
attend, the Nuffield Trust’s Health Policy Summit (29 Feb to
1 Mar 2012).
• While it is not a comprehensive, representative sample, the
findings provide a useful insight into the views of a selected
group of health leaders.
1 March 2012

3. Methodology
• The survey asked a range of questions: some to probe
attitudes to the current reforms to the English NHS, while
others were more wide-ranging, designed to explore
attitudes to some of the bigger questions facing the NHS.
• The survey was sent to 250 health leaders. Fifty people
completed the survey, representing a response rate of 20
per cent. The results are anonymous.
• The online poll was open between 3 February and 27
February 2012.
1 March 2012

4. Which of the following statements comes closest to reflecting your
overall view of the NHS?

5. In general, do you think the quality of medical care that patients
receive from the NHS over the past three years has improved, got
worse or stayed about the same?

6. ‘The NHS is on track to meet the challenge of generating £20 billion of
efficiency savings by 2015’. How far do you agree with this statement?

7. ‘The reforms to NHS structures and rules set out in the Health and Social
Care Bill 2011 are essential to achieving the £20 billion efficiency savings
by 2014’. How far do you agree with this statement?

8. Do you think the Health and Social Care Bill should be scrapped?

9. ‘Commissioning by clinical commissioning groups will, in three years, result in
higher-quality, more efficient health care than commissioning by primary care
trusts today’. How far do you agree with this statement?

10. ‘Commissioning by the clinical commissioning groups will, in three years, be more
effective than primary care trusts today in breaking down the barriers between
primary and secondary care’. How far do you agree with this statement?

11. ‘Greater competition between providers for NHS patients will increase the sum
total of quality and efficiency of NHS services’. How far do you agree with this
statement?

12. ‘Providers of NHS-funded services should have greater flexibility at a local
level to compete on price’. How far do you agree with this statement?

13. ‘Competition between clinical commissioning groups for patients should be
explicitly encouraged’. How far do you agree with this statement?

14. ‘Developing integrated care should be the NHS’ top priority over the next
decade’. How far do you agree with this statement?

15. ‘There will be more local accountability over commissioning decisions, as a result of the new
clinical commissioning groups and local health and wellbeing boards, than there has been for
primary care trusts’. How far do you agree with this statement?

16. ‘Clinical commissioning group boards will be more accountable to the NHS
Commissioning Board than the local populations they serve’.
How far do you agree with this statement?

17. What motivates clinicians most in the NHS?
(lower score = higher rank)

18. Which, if any, of the following are essential for unleashing innovation
in the NHS:

19. ‘It is inevitable, in the next five years, that a ‘benefits package’ of what is and isn’t
available on the NHS will have to be defined explicitly’.
How far do you agree with this statement?

20. ‘It will become necessary to impose new charges or co-payments on NHS patients
within the next five years’. How far do you agree with this statement?

21. www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk
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1 March 2012 © Nuffield Trust