Yes, the NHS Confederation is certainly getting fed up. This is from the press release:
"A fixation with buildings with buildings is preventing the development of new and imaginative services and we will have to work hard to convince the public that, with technological advances, the loss of beds does not necessarily equate to a decline in services.
“Our members are taking a long term view that has patient care at the heart. The government needs to give them the space and the control to get on with it.”
Dr Gill Morgan further commented: “The causes of the current problems are deep-rooted and long term. Many of them relate to changes in accounting rules. It is wrong of the government to simply blame NHS managers. If this was easy it would already have been done.“We are running a serious risk of undermining public confidence in the NHS when we are actually treating record numbers of patients and making them better quicker”.
Survey findings
Long term solutions to NHS finances
88 per cent of the chief executives surveyed believe that they cannot take the tough local decisions about their health services without strong political support
74 per cent of chief executives polled said that long term reform, including redesigning and closing services, will be key to balancing the books
51 per cent citied long term financial management as a major solution to solving the problems
49 per cent said that the service must control activity and demand
46 per cent said the service must improve productivity
34 per cent thought that in the long term, workforce costs must be reducedCauses of the deficits
I in 4 chief executives say that the biggest problem is no longer being able to borrow money from other parts of the NHS
1 in 3 primary care trusts, who pay acute trusts to deliver services, cite payment by results – the government’s new policy of paying trusts by the volume of activity they deliver – as the biggest cause of the deficits
9 per cent believe that the biggest problem is deficits incurred elsewhere being ‘parked’ with their trusts
9 per cent cited workforce reform as the biggest problem
Short-term action being taken to balance the books90 per cent are reducing agency staff costs
85 per cent have put a freeze on new expenditure
82 per cent have imposed a vacancy freeze
78 per cent have seen staff reductions
52 per cent have temporarily closed wards
48 per cent are rescheduling work
38 per cent have cancelled services or restricted eligibility for services
28 per cent have frozen partnership or other contractual arrangements
ENDSNotes for Editors
1. The NHS Confederation has completed an in-depth survey of 35 of the 63 chief executives who have been sent KPMG ‘turnaround teams’ by the Department of Health. They are all in deficit, most by at least £5 million. The full findings of the survey will be published in the Health Service Journal on 2 February.
The full press release is here.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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I just came across this. How amusing:
http://www.keepournhspublic.com/launch.php
The situation is grave. The value of the NHS is immense and cannot be mirrored by the private sector. It must be kept in public hands, serving the interests of all patients and the broader public, not the private healthcare industry.
Yep. Gosh, if only we let the NHS have a bit more money and carry on how it has been for the last 60 years, all would be well. Yeah, I mean it's tough running an NHS on £90+bn each year... all those managers, all those administrators, all those very favourable pensions, all that paperwork to be printed off and stored, all that dirt to try and clean up off the floor and walls. Yep, in fact it's sooo tough you need to hire more managers than any other type of employee (source: http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=132622006).
The solution to it all is so obvious. Keep the NHS just as it is, but just close off all the wards, and all the hospitals, and fire all the doctors and nurses. The efficiency savings would be huge... and the NHS would be free to concentrate on its core business - being the most ridiculous bureaucracy in the world.
Posted by: Raw Carrot at January 28, 2006 02:58 AM
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49 per cent said that the service must control activity and demand
Then the "service" must play at God.
If there were a mechanism for ensuring funds followed the patient, and if there were competition for patients, and if patients had the power of decision about where they were treated, then medical care might have "patient care at the heart".
Without those things the NHS has only itself at heart, with no need to provide any particular service, and no need to treat any particular patient.
Posted by: Tim at January 27, 2006 08:09 AM