Extra funds must be paired with serious reform, say ex-ministers
THE NHS must be radically reformed and simplified if Theresa May’s £20 billion funding boost is to make a difference to patients, two former health ministers have said.
Lord Prior, the chairman of UCL Hospital and former Tory health minister, and Lord Darzi, the NHS surgeon and former Labour health minister, said health and social care must be amalgamated to save costs and prevent too many people becoming “stuck in NHS beds”.
Announcing the increased funding this weekend, Mrs May warned that if the NHS did not become more efficient funding increases would be “swallowed up before they reach the front line” and said she would “hold NHS leaders to account”.
Lord Darzi said: “The proposed increase in NHS funding is very welcome but must be accompanied by a serious plan for reform. NHS staff are trapped working in a fractured system that is in desperate need of radical simplification.”
Last week, in a report for the Institute for Public Policy Research, the for- mer ministers called for the establishment of 10 new Health and Care Authorities to replace the 195 Clinical Commissioning Groups and five NHS England regions.
Lord Prior added: “Simply putting more money in the NHS and hoping for the best will not work.
“We need a shift from ‘diagnose and treat’ to ‘predict and prevent’. Care must be joined up around, and tailored to, the patient.”
Figures released last year showed the NHS is wasting millions by not centralising procurement of everyday items, such as rubber gloves.
Hospitals in England paid between 35p and £16.47 for the same single pack of 12 rubber gloves, Jeremy Hunt disclosed, while a box of 100 plasters cost one trust £1.68 and another £21.76.
To improve clinical quality and efficiency, NHS England commissioned Tim Briggs to carry out a review of services across the country.
The “Getting It Right First Time” project is looking into 35 medical and surgical specialities, with 41 clinicians touring hospitals to look at the variations in treatment, length of hospital stay and costs.
Prof Briggs, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, said: “We are now making significant savings. We are seeing reductions in everyday re-admission rates, length of stay, infection rates and reductions in costs.
“We have also seen a significant reduction in litigation costs. We can really change things.”
However, the Nuffield Trust said that hospitals were often caught between two policies, one to source locally, another to keep down costs.
Nigel Edwards, the chief executive, said: “For this money to work it needs to take some of the admin off staff, and allow them to do their jobs properly.”
The Royal College of GPS also said funding for doctors was vital if the £20billion boost was to make a real change and called for more clerical staff and social prescribers to prevent GPS becoming bogged down in paperwork and non-medical issues.