9mago 15.03 GMT
Leading health thinktanks say, while they can see case for
abolishing NHS England, benefits for patients might be modest
Two of the leading health thinktanks in the UK have said that, while they can
see the case for abolishing NHS England, the benefits for patients might be
modest
In a statement, Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said:
44 Today’s announcement lands on the same day that NHS stats show people
continue to wait days in A&E and many patients remain stuck in hospital beds
despite being well enough to leave. The most important question is how will the
abolition of NHS England make it easier for people to get a GP appointment,
shorten waits for planned care and improve people’s health? That hasn’t yet
been set out - ministers will need to explain how the prize will be worth the
price.
It is absolutely right that democratically elected politicians must have clear
oversight of how the NHS delivers for patients and spends hundreds of billions
of taxpayer money. It is also reasonable to want to deliver better value by
reducing duplication and waste between two national bodies where they are
performing a similar role. It is true that over its just over a decade of existence,
NHS England has been asked to take on a lot more additional power, functions
and therefore staff; than it was originally designed to do.
Having now made the decision to abolish NHS England, and while we still wait
for the publication of the NHS 10 Year Plan, the government must be clear why
this significant structural change at this time is necessary, and how it fits into
their wider plans. The potential cost savings would be minimal in the context of
the entire NHS budget, and so they must ensure that the changes produce the
improved effectiveness which is sought by making this change.
And Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said:
44 Today’s news will be devastating for staff at all levels of NHS England, and
we must remain mindful of the human cost of this decision. With the public
finances under extraordinary pressure it does, however, make sense to remove
the duplication and bureaucracy that exists currently - and patients and the
public are probably not going to shed many tears over the shifting of power
from an arm’s-length body into central government.
But profound problems facing the NHS remain: how to meet growing patient
need in the face of spiralling waiting lists and how to invest in care closer to
home with the NHS’s wider finances already underwater and social care reform
in the long grass. It is not immediately clear that rearranging the locus of the
power at the top will make a huge and immediate difference to these issues,
which ultimately will be how patients and the public judge the government.
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