A public consultation to strengthen the NHS Constitution was announced in November 2012.  The constitution, which was originally published in 2009, set out people’s rights and responsibilities for entitlement to NHS Care.

Profession Steve Field heads a team of health experts working on the consultation and approached the Self Care Forum to make a submission.

This was made recently, with the focus on responsibilities and the provisions for encouraging greater individual responsibility.

The main points made in the consultation response are:

• shared decision-making as the way forward in engendering patient-centred approaches throughout the system, from the first contact to the last
• there is the need for health literacy to be built into all interactions with patients and the public with the necessary education and training put in place to help in this process.
• there should be support for self care, health literacy, and health education in schools, and for cross-Government links between the Department of Health and the Department for Education, as well as reference to the responsibility of Local Authorities to have regard to the NHS Constitution
• there is the need to add the meaning of responsibility for health and self care. There is sometimes a misunderstanding about what we mean by ‘self care’ which should be addressed since there is a significant and growing acceptance of its importance for individuals and organisations alike.

To download a full copy of the response please click here.  Responses to the consultation will be fed into a revised version of the NHS Constitution, which is expected in April 2013.