NHS leader condemns healthcare reform policy
Released 23/01/2012
Chief executive of the NHS Confederation speaks out against NHS changes ahead of the Health Select Committee’s report
The report warns that the plan to give family doctors control over NHS spending would make it increasingly difficult to achieve the £20bn of cutbacks expected in the NHS by 2014
A major NHS leader has expressed concerns over the future of finance and clinical support that will be available to patients after the government’s healthcare reforms are implemented.
Chief executive of the NHS Confederation, Mike Farrar, stated that he was “deeply concerned about the financial pressures facing the healthcare system in this country and the impact this will have on patients.”
The comment comes ahead of the cross-party Health Select Committee’s report, chaired by former Secretary for Heath Stephen Dorrell, set to be released this week.
The report warns that the plan to give family doctors control over NHS spending would make it increasingly difficult to achieve the £20bn of cutbacks expected in the NHS by 2014.
“The full implications of this remain poorly understood outside the NHS, partly because politicians are reluctant to stand up and explain them,” said Farrar.
“The result is a sense of sleep walking into some serious difficulties. We fully expect a number of NHS organisations to fall into difficulties this year, and the problems will only grow unless action is taken.”
“Damming indictment”
Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has stated that the coalition’s reforms had been a “monumental mistake” and that the government needed to reconsider their future.
“This report is a damning indictment of the Government’s mishandling of the NHS. It is time for David Cameron to listen to what doctors, nurses and now his own senior MPs are saying and call a halt to this reckless reorganisation,” said Burnham.
Farrar said that the NHS was “sleepwalking into serious difficulties” with the reforms, and that the NHS Confederation “fully expect a number of NHS organisations to fall into difficulties this year” as a result of then changes.
"If we are to keep the NHS sustainable in the long term, we need to be honest that this will mean fundamentally reorganising the way we deliver care in the best interest of patients,” he added.
“From the outset, we have made clear that the government’s reforms to the administrative structures of the NHS are a distraction in terms of addressing these fundamental challenges.”
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