NHS sets out prescription for future

1:04am Wednesday 14th May 2008

NHS Yorkshire and the Humber has published the results of its wide-ranging review identifying huge improvements that will be made to the NHS in the region.

Healthy Ambitions is the culmination of the NHS Next Stage Review which has involved hundreds of doctors, nurses, midwives and health professionals from the region in drawing up a blueprint for higher quality NHS services. The report outlines how the regional NHS will face the challenges of the future and its priorities for the next ten years.

Priorities for action include halting the rise in obesity, raising breastfeeding rates, halving the number of children admitted to hospital with asthma, saving 600 premature deaths every year with better stroke care and doubling the number of people able to choose to die at home rather than hospital.

An additional £150m has already been identified to implement these changes.

Margaret Edwards, chief executive NHS Yorkshire and Humber, said: "The communities we now serve are very different to when the NHS was set up. This report summarises their work, setting out an ambitious and wide-ranging set of recommendations to improve health in Yorkshire and the Humber and to improve the quality, safety and accessibility of our services."

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