Clinical commissioning groups will have to set targets for reducing health inequalities and improving outcomes for health and wellbeing, under the 2015-16 planning guidance.

The document sets out in greater detail how the health service will carry out the prevention drive against ill health, launched in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

CCGs will have to work with local government to set “quantifiable levels of ambition” for making progress on health inequalities and improving health and wellbeing, along with actions for achieving them.

NHS England said it would work with the Local Government Association to publish proposals for actions “that local areas could take to go further and faster in tackling health risks from alcohol, fast food, tobacco and other issues”.

The idea is in line with the ambition stated in the forward view for the NHS to become an “activist agent” of social change to improve prevention and public health.

The planning guidance also says that by autumn 2015 NHS England will have developed proposals for how the NHS can help people stay in work or return to employment to save “downstream costs” at the Department for Work and Pensions.

In the same timeframe it will publish findings on the potential to roll out incentives for employers that provide workplace health programmes for their staff.

The Forward View into Action states that England will also become the first country in the world “to implement at scale a national evidence based diabetes prevention programme”, which will be delivered from 2016-17.

In addition to the actions on prevention, the guidance says CCGs will be expected to lead a “major expansion” of personal health budgets.

2015-16 will also see the first steps towards “integrated personalised commissioning” in a number of pilot sites where “year of care” budgets covering NHS and social care will be devolved to people with complex needs.

The guidance outlines a number of proposals for improving the way the NHS engages with communities, including a pledge to reduce bureaucracy around the voluntary sector, securing NHS funding through grant agreements.

It says these agreements can “sometimes provide a more appropriate means for NHS commissioners to fund voluntary organisations, rather than burdensome contracts”.

Forward view analysed: What the NHS future holds

The NHS Five Year Forward View, published in October, sets out an ambitious future for the NHS.

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said it marked the “first time ever the NHS itself has set out a clear sense of direction for how services need to evolve and improve”.

HSJ, in association with KPMG, asked seven prominent health service commentators to analyse the document and give their prediction on what the future holds.

Read what they have to say on the health service’s future vision…

 

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Unrealistic better care fund targets must be revised, says NHS England