NHS cuts will push health service “to the limit”
pharmafile | December 14, 2010 | News story | | Health Select Committee, King’s Fund, NHS, NHS Confederation, NHS reforms, king's fund, social services
MPs have issued a stark warning on the impact of Government spending plans on the England’s health services, saying they will test the NHS and social services to the limit.
The influential Commons Health Select Committee raised concerns the required efficiency savings and the minute real terms increase in government funding have set the greatest challenge to the NHS that it – or any other healthcare system – has ever seen.
Launching a report on public expenditure, Conservative MP Stephen Dorrell, a former health secretary and chair of the Committee, said: “The government’s plans for health and social care are based on assumptions which will test these services to the limit.”
“Those figures,” Dorrell said, “represent a requirement for the NHS to deliver 4% efficiency gain, four years running.
“There is no precedent for efficiency gain on this scale in the history of the NHS, nor has any precedent yet been found of any healthcare system anywhere in the world doing anything similar.”
In 2009 NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson published a report stating that the health service will require efficiency savings of between £15-£20 billion by 2015.
In October this year the Chancellor George Osborne said NHS spending in England would rise by £10 billion from £104bn this year to £114bn by 2014-15, the equivalent of just 0.1% above inflation, making the ‘Nicholson challenge’ more difficult.
Dorrell said that this had made the future for the NHS “extremely challenging”, but ended on a note of optimism, stating, “nobody has told us it’s impossible”.
King’s Fund: report adds weight to NHS concerns
Responding to the Committee’s report Chris Ham, chief executive of the health think tank The King’s Fund, said he welcomed the “clear emphasis” in the Committee’s report on meeting the financial challenge facing the NHS by generating productivity improvements, rather than cutting services.
“The report underlines the scale of the challenge facing local authorities in sustaining social care services in the face of significant cuts in their budgets, a challenge underlined by the announcement of the local government settlement,” Ham said.
“This report adds the Health Select Committee’s weight to concerns about whether the NHS can meet the financial challenge it faces at the same time as implementing the structural changes set out in the government’s health White Paper.”
Ham added that The King’s Fund agreed with the Committee both about the need for tight financial controls and the need of a clearer plan for delivering the £20 billion in productivity improvements.
Report ‘hits the nail on the head’
The NHS Confederation’s acting chief executive Nigel Edwards said: “The Committee has hit the nail on the head with the concerns it has highlighted in its report.
“It has shown a thorough understanding of the fierce pressure that the health and social care sectors are now under.
“All at the same time, NHS trusts are grappling with unprecedented efficiency savings, major management cuts and radical structural reforms.
“It’s a mixture that is causing real anxiety among NHS leaders.” Edwards added.
Ben Adams
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