Oxford centre publishes report on improving NHS healthcare

With healthcare set to be one of the central items on the upcoming election agenda, an Oxford report on how to encourage employee engagement and increased public benefits in the NHS will add new substance to the debate. The Centre for Mutual and Employee-Owned Business (MEOB), based at Kellogg College, Oxford, today releases the report of a parliamentary seminar held on 18 December, 2009. Entitled 'A Mutual Health Service,' the report looks at the Foundation Trust model for hospitals, whereby hospitals effectively become mutual businesses owned and governed by stakeholders including patients, the local community and employees. The report's lead authors were Professor Jonathan Michie, Director of the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford and director of MEOB, Professor Chris Ham of the University of Birmingham, and Cliff Mills, a solicitor and an associate of MEOB. The NHS is Europe's biggest employer, with around 1.3 million staff. The report looked at key issues including how to develop the mutual model to better engage this vast workforce. Foundation Trust hospitals are one type of mutual organisation, with patients and the local community having representation and a voice, as well as employees - but the report says more needs to be done to make the most of this type of structure.