Following a special meeting of the board of NHS Tayside in Kings Cross Hospital, Dundee, there has been a huge power shift affecting how, and even if, patients are admitted to hospital in future.

Today’s decision is intended to eliminate the boundaries between hospital and community care and ease changes in the way £530 million is spent annually on health services in Tayside.

Ninewells Hospital-based consultant physician Dr Mike Jones explained some of the things that were currently being done differently but made clear there was a huge opportunity to move the care of people with chronic diseases out of hospital if there were appropriate conditions for their care in the community.

“The bottom line is there has to be appropriate diagnosis and up-to-date management of patient care.”

He said the NHS has to look at delivering care “in a different way” and in different places.

Board chairman Peter Bates made clear that getting appropriate funding to the appropriate people to deliver care was important and that the new system would create the conditions to allow that.

There was some concern expressed by board members about the opportunity to clearly monitor the large unit.

Senior managers were told the plans were being agreed in principle and the change to a single unit would go ahead from April 1.