Civil servants to be given frontline NHS experience

The government has announced plans to ensure that Department of Health civil servants possess direct experience of the NHS frontline in order to improve their decision-making.

Under the new scheme, civil servants will be expected to gain first-hand experience of life in health or social care and may be requested to spend time accompanying hospital porters, listening to receptionists or learning how nurses and care assistants operate.

They will spend at least a month a year learning about patient experiences, allowing them to gain a greater understanding of how their policy decisions will work in practice.

It was recommended in the recent Francis report that changing the culture of the Department of Health to prioritise the needs of patients is an important step that needs to be taken.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "Too often, civil servants are accused of making policies from within the ivory towers of Whitehall. It is time for this perception of aloofness to end."

The Francis report was launched in response to the patient safety failings seen at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, with the aim of improving the quality of care across the NHS.