Top hospital chief: Hunt’s conning you ...the NHS is broke and crippled by fear

ONE of Britain’s leading hospital chiefs has accused Jeremy Hunt of misleading Britain by claiming he can deliver more round-the-clock NHS services despite the organisation’s crippling financial crisis.

Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett, who leads the group of chairmen running England’s top teaching hospitals, said there wasn’t a ‘cat’s chance’ of successfully putting on more seven-day services when the NHS was ‘struggling’ so badly.

He said that unless Ministers invested billions more of taxpayers’ money, doctors would be forced to start charging patients for a raft of vital services – ending almost 70 years of an NHS which is ‘free at the point of delivery’.

Sir Thomas, who is chairman of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, has demanded a crisis summit with the Prime Minister and Health Secretary Mr Hunt.

In a bombshell letter sent to fellow hospital bosses and to Mr Hunt, and obtained by The Mail on Sunday, he warns of:

A ‘worsening financial crisis’ leading to a ‘crisis in care provision’;

An ‘environment of negativism’ triggered by endlessly critical missives from Ministers and officials;

‘Highly burdensome regulation’ leading to ‘abject confusion, fatigue and short-sightedness’;

A ‘climate of fear’ ruling wards, with doctors afraid they could be jailed for making a single mistake;

‘Continued emigration’ of doctors, in part due to the ‘clumsy’ handling of negotiations over the junior doctors’ contract’

The risk that these problems will cause an ‘inevitable reduction in quality and patient care’.

Sir Thomas, who was knighted in 2012 after leading the Marie Curie charity for 12 years, wrote: ‘Rather than sitting back in silence and allowing this to persist, I suggest some or all of us as senior nonexecutive public servants, have a duty to tell truth to power.’

After The Mail on Sunday contacted him about the letter, which he wrote in a personal capacity, he agreed to write an article for this newspaper in which he warns Ministers against promising that hospitals will lay on even more seven-day services when the NHS is ill-prepared to do so.

Both the Prime Minister and Mr Hunt are keen to have more hospital departments open seven days, arguing this will save thousands of lives.

Last Tuesday the Health Secretary told the Conservative Party conference that he wanted ‘to end the scandal of 11,000 excess deaths each year because of what is known as the “weekend effect” in hospitals’.

Patients who fall ill at weekends often have to wait longer for crucial tests, while many wards are not as well staffed as during ‘office hours’.

Sir Thomas writes today: ‘The Government’s big idea is to offer the public even more of a 24/7 NHS, but there isn’t a cat’s chance of that happening, when our hard-pressed and loyal staff are struggling to deliver what we are meant to be delivering, within our means.

‘I applaud the intention of providing more services 24/7, but how are we going to afford it? I think there’s a risk that the public’s expectations are being raised, without a realistic chance of us meeting them.’

He says matters have become so serious that the Government now faces a ‘clear decision’ if it wants to maintain the safety of the NHS. ‘Either it puts more money into the system to maintain the health service as it is now – with every service free to all. Or it asks people to contribute their own money for certain aspects of their health care.’

Besides dental treatment and prescriptions, there are no charges for NHS services. It remains almost exclusively funded by taxation.

But some areas have started introducing controversial restrictions. In Mid-Essex only couples in ‘exceptional circumstances’ will now get IVF on the NHS. In his article, Sir Thomas suggests the NHS may have to cut back on the most expensive drugs, and could also make more use of volunteer carers, as he witnessed in India.

His letter was sent to about 40 fellow NHS chairmen. Many are thought to share similar views, but none has been nearly as vocal.

NHS trusts overspent by £930million in the first three months of the current financial year – more than the whole of the previous year, a financial position described as the ‘worst in a generation’.

Ben Gummer, the Under-secretary of State for Health Services, said the Government ‘fundamentally disagreed’ with Sir Thomas’s views on seven-day services, saying money was being put into the plan.

‘Delivering seven-day services is crucial to improving standards of patient care and to reducing the 11,000 excess deaths a year we know are caused by the weekend effect.’ he said. ‘We’re funding the NHS’s own plan to deliver this with £10 billion [between now and 2020], but there are exceptionally well-run hospitals already providing outstanding care across the week, and which are examples of best practice for those not yet doing so.

‘Over the next five years, we have the opportunity to build the safest, most compassionate healthcare system in the world.’

NHS ‘needs more tax money to remain free’