Acheson Report (Hansard, 12 December 1985)

§ Mr. Hayhoe

[pursuant to his reply, 9 December 1985, c. 496.]Many of the 115 recommendations of the Acheson report on primary health care in Inner London were directed at the wide range of bodies with responsibilities or interests in the primary health care field. These were asked to give the report urgent consideration as a basis for local action, but it would not be feasible to mount an exercise to monitor local implementation. Some recommendations raised more general issues, in relation to the future provision of services, which will be considered in the context of the Green Paper on primary health care; guidance on deputising services has already been issued. To promote action nationally on the Acheson report recommendations, the Government announced in 1983 a £9 million package, much of which has been passed to the relevant regional health authorities for projects that would benefit primary health care services locally. Other parts of this package are being used centrally to fund schemes and projects on the lines recommended by this report. These include more training opportunities for health visitors and district nurses and, for general practitioners in inner cities, enhanced premises improvement grants, funding for the improvement and monitoring of minimum standards in those premises, architectural advice on premises, additional incentives to form group practices, and training aids. Support has been provided for five academic departments of general practice, to enhance liaison between those departments and the local practices. Central funds have also been made available to promote projects to explore different ways of organising primary health care provision based on small areas, improving the dissemination of information about primary health care in inner cities, enhancing collaboration between family practitioner committees and health authorities, and promoting experimental schemes to provide primary health care for the homeless and rootless.