Government pushes on with NHS reforms
The Coalition Government is to press ahead with radical reforms of the National Health Service, which will see as much as 80 per cent of the budget in the hands of GPs, writes Victoria Macdonald.
Announcing the end of a consultation period for the NHS reform White Paper, the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said a “very large” number of people were happy about the changes to the NHS. There are no testimonies currently available to prove or disprove that.
There were, however, 6,000 responses to the consultation and today the NHS Confederation warned that chaos could ensue if the reform was not managed properly.
David Stout, of the Confederation’s Primary Care Trust Network, said that they would rather have seen “evolution not revolution”.
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Concern at speed of reforms
The British Medical Association also said they were concerned at the speed of the reforms and that it was being done at a time when the NHS was struggling financially.
At Prime Minister’s Questions today, Ed Miliband accused David Cameron of breaking promises to increase NHS spending. This was disputed by the Prime Minister, who said: “We are not breaking that promise. We want to see NHS spending increase by more than inflation every year.”
There remains some dispute over precisely how much NHS spending is to rise, and it is clear that Primary Care Trusts are struggling to balance their books, with cuts being made across the country.
MPs sitting on the influential Health Select Committee yesterday warned that the NHS will be “tested to the limit” amid spending cuts.
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Channel 4 News spent the day in Warrington where GPs have been asked to stop making non-urgent referrals if they believe they are not absolutely necessary, and all IVF treatments have been deferred until next July.
The reforms were part of a series of announcements being made today, which also include a renewed pledge to fine hospitals if they fail to end the use of mixed sex wards. The Department of Health Operating Framework is also expected to scrap the response times targets for ambulances.
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