Layers of bureaucracy in the NHS

Political editor Supplements editor Business editor Great. The NHS and local authorities are talking to each other with a view to integrating their services.

We, the service users (patients and their carers) have been imploring them to do this for years. Is it finally happening? Well, the grandly named Sustainability and Transformation Plans seem to suggest that this is one of the primary aims.

But perhaps we shouldn’t hold our breath.

Those involved are unfortunately under the delusion that more can be done for less funding, and the totally unrealistic target of £22bn savings can be reached in England in the next four or five years.

I will declare my interest in this. I have no allegiance to any political organisation. I am the main and full-time carer for my wife who has a long-term illness. We rely on the What’s On reporter KoL editor NHS for help and support. Very rarely do we feel that the service is functioning as it should and there seems to be some organisational paralysis caused by fragmented budgets causing groups to behave like ‘thiefdoms’ and a hugely wasteful multi-layered management and governance structure.

The latest addition to these layers are the Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships, which now appear to have a life of their own with a board headed by a CEO. That’s 44 new CEOs added KoL news editor KoL assistant news editor to the wage bill in England plus the time of other NHS practitioners and yet again enormous expenditure on management consultants.

I have formed these views from information published on the web – not that it was easy to find.

We need a much wider discussion of what is about to happen to our NHS. I know there have been ‘Listening Events’ but only a few can attend those.

And we need this before the plans go out for ‘formal consultation’.

To their credit the people involved in the STPs have, in their documents, asked for help from the public. But if the public is not generally aware of that request since it is in documents that they may not even know exist, how is it expected to be an effective public involvement? Paul Baillie, Ashford Road, Bearsted