Restructure will cut costs and improve NHS services, says Hewitt
pharmafile | April 12, 2006 | News story | |Â Â Hewitt, NHSÂ
Health secretary Patricia Hewitt, has unveiled a map of the new NHS ‘architecture’, which she says will reduce NHS costs and improve services for patients.
England currently has 28 Strategic Health Authorities, but these are to be merged into just ten larger bodies. The new super SHAs will cover much larger and more diverse areas than their predecessors, with the aim of cutting bureaucracy and cost, and allowing England’s primary care trusts to take on a greater strategic role.
England’s PCTs are also facing large-scale mergers, with confirmation that their numbers will be halved to 150 expected shortly.
The ten new SHAs are roughly equivalent to each other, but face their own local challenges. For example in the North East, two existing SHAs will merge into one, covering a population of around 2.5 million. Meanwhile London’s four current SHAs will become one, covering a population of 7.4 million people.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the re-organisation would streamline management and admin, allowing more resources to be dedicated to patient care. The Department of Health explicitly named some job functions likely to be areas for saving, including administrative roles, human resource functions, accounts, and hospital contract negotiation teams.
As well as allowing PCTs to become more strategic, the government hopes the new SHAs will also help create more independent foundation trusts. The new bodies will also have the same boundaries as Government Offices for the Regions, which it hopes will foster joint working between health and local government agencies.
Hewitt concluded: “These improvements to the local NHS will mean more money for frontline services and better care for patients.”
The new SHA map was unveiled at a Downing Street seminar, where the Prime Minister and Patricia Hewitt heard an update on the financial turnaround programme from Sir Ian Carruthers, the acting Chief Executive of the NHS.
The NHS Confederation, which represents most health service managers, has publicly supported the re-structuring. But privately, many managers say the changes have added an extra burden, with many trusts already struggling with the reform of finances and services.
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