NHS reform and cuts ‘no gamble’ (From The Northern Echo)
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NHS reform and cuts ‘no gamble’
8:18am Tuesday 24th August 2010 in News
THE Health Secretary last night defended Government plans to reshape the NHS – despite claims the move will cost hundreds of jobs.
On his first official visit to the region, Andrew Lansley denied his plan – in which more than 1,700 jobs will be axed in the North-East and Cumbria alone – was a gamble with the future of the health service.
Mr Lansley visited the North-East Ambulance Service headquarters, in Newcastle, to launch the NHS 111 telephone service for callers who need non-emergency health care.
A national first – and only available in County Durham and Darlington at the moment – the service is expected to be rolled out nationally if it is a success.
His visit coincided with the publication of a report by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) which shows the scale of the cuts to the region’s NHS ordered by the Government.
The study, based on information obtained from every hospital and primary care trust in the Northern region – which includes the North- East and Cumbria – suggests that the £800m due to be cut in the next four years will result in 1,750 fewer health care workers and 403 fewer beds.
One trust, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, aims to cut £60m by 2014, closing 300 beds and losing 300 nursing jobs through non-replacement.
Mr Lansley has also been criticised by North-East health academics for taking a gamble with the future of the NHS by handing control of most of the budget to groups of GPs and abolishing two tiers of NHS administration.
He told The Northern Echo that he rejected accusations his proposals were a gamble.
He said: “It is not a jump in the dark. The essence of what I am aiming to do is evidencebased across the world.
“If you really want to manage a health care system as effectively as possible, you have to have people who combine the responsibility for the management of the care of patients with the responsibility for the management of resources.
“That is what I am aiming to do – and I don’t think that is a gamble at all.”
Mr Lansley said he thought it would be risky not to give GPs a role in commissioning care. He revealed that he gave a presentation to GPs in the North-East last year and the response was very positive.
“They were very clear they could do this,” he said.
He stressed that while the Government wanted to reduce management spending, it was committed to increasing overall investment in the NHS and switching resources from the “back office” to the frontline.
He said: “We made a decision we would not have the sick pay for the debt crisis we inherited. Therefore, the NHS would see its resources increase in real terms each year.
“It is actually the Labour Party saying that they think the NHS budget should be cut.”
Commenting on the RCN report, Mr Lansley said he was more interested in improving “patient outcomes”
than the number of beds.
He said the NHS had to reverse recent trends, which had seen administrators increase by 63 per cent in the past decade, while nursing staff had increased by 29 per cent.
