What the Department of Health does
The Department of Health (DH) helps people to live better for longer. It leads, shapes and funds health and care in England, making sure people have the support, care and treatment they need, with the compassion, respect and dignity they deserve.
DH responsibilities
DH leads across health and care by creating national policies and legislation, providing the long-term vision and ambition to meet current and future challenges, putting health and care at the heart of government and being a global leader in health and care policy.
DH supports the integrity of the system by providing funding, assuring the delivery and continuity of services and accounting to Parliament in a way that represents the best interests of the patient, public and taxpayer.
DH champions innovation and improvement by supporting research and technology, promoting honesty, openness and transparency, and instilling a culture that values compassion, dignity and the highest quality of care above everything.
Above all, DH encourages staff in every health and care organisation, including our own, to understand and learn from people’s experience of health and care and to apply this to everything we do.
DH priorities for 2013 to 2014 are:
To prevent people from dying prematurely by improving mortality rates for the big killer diseases, to be amongst the best in Europe, through improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
To improve the standard of care throughout the system so that quality of care is considered as important as quality of treatment, through greater accountability, better training, tougher inspections and more attention paid to what patients say.
To improve the treatment and care of people with dementia, to be among the best in Europe through early diagnosis, better research and better support
To bring the technology revolution to the NHS to help people, especially those with long term conditions, manage their health and care
Who the DH are:
DH is a ministerial department, supported by 24 agencies and public bodies. The department employs 2,160 staff who work in locations across the country.More information can be found on the Department of Health website.
This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0. More about this license can be found through the National Archives Open Government License page.