Education and training consortia: leading the way for the new British NHS

In November 1997 The New NHS - Modern, Dependable was published, describing the British Labour government's plans to introduce major changes to the NH S (National Health Service). Education and Training Consortia (ETCs) were o nly briefly referred to and no direct changes were proposed to them. It can be argued that this was because they had not fitted well within the Conser vative government's competitive culture of the NHS internal market. Educati on Consortia members share information, make plans collectively and work co llaboratively, activities much more appropriate for the 'New NHS' which is underpinned by the concepts of partnership, openness and local ownership. I n this paper it is argued that there are many valuable lessons that the key individuals involved in implementing the policies of the New NHS can learn from Education and Training Consortia. Data have been drawn from a qualita tive study in which the aim was to explore the development, implementation and management of consortia and contracting for non-medical education and t raining (NMET) from a stakeholder's perspective. One of the unexpected them es that emerged from the analysis of the data, was that the development of ETCs could be utilized as a model for many of the innovations in the New NH S, particularly in relation to the formation of primary care groups.