Blair holds meeting to find solution to NHS crisis

Blair holds meeting to find solution to NHS crisis

	Published : Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:20 By : David Simms Print this Story

LONDON: Prime minister Tony Blair and health secretary Patricia Hewitt are meeting chief executives of primary care trusts and health authorities in a bid to discuss and defuse the financial crisis in the NHS. The scheme is facing debts to the tune of 623 million pounds.

The meeting will review the work being carried out by the turnaround teams in the worst affected trusts and try to evolve a method to bring back financial balance in the system. The meeting follows an announcement that West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust is cutting some 500 jobs to overcome a 28.6-million-pound deficit.

A number of NHS trusts have already announced job cuts, which are around 7,000 in total now, as they try to handle a deepening crisis facing the system.

Meanwhile, a report released Wednesday by a think tank, Reform, says the proposed reforms in the NHS could mean loss of further 10,000 jobs. The changes would bring a more efficient workforce, but it will be at the cost of a 10 per cent reduction in staff, the report said.

Nick Bosanquet, professor of health policy at Imperial College, London, who has authored the report, said reforms like setting up foundation hospitals, payment by results and patient choice can bring in greater productivity. Experienced "high quality" staff will contribute "far more" to caring patients than larger number of inexperienced staff. Unfortunately, he says, the NHS has to date focused on "quantity rather than quality", with thousands more workers brought into the system.

While the unions rejected the idea of better patient care with fewer staff, Hewitt said some of the ideas like more flexibility made sense, but did not agree to the job cuts to the extent suggested. She said as the reforms programme gets going, some parts of the NHS will probably reduce staff but in other areas like primary care, there will be addition in staff as more and more services will be delivered closer to the patient and outside hospitals.

At the meeting, acting chief executive of the NHS Sir Ian Carruthers is expected to outline how he intends to cover the deficits within the next 12 months. He is likely to explain how the service can deliver higher productivity at the same time bringing in financial balance to the troubled trusts.

Carruthers believes that there is scope for cuts in the 10.3 billion pounds spent every year on drugs and the 1 billion pounds on temporary staff. In 2005, the department of health had been able to bring about a 7 per cent cut in the profits that drug companies can make from the NHS.

The chief executives and medical directors of trusts, which have overspent, will report on how they are cutting hospital stays and emergency admissions.

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, says some job cuts are necessary as part of the reforms. But, he feels that some hospitals had found themselves in a financial hole in trying to keep up with government targets.

One thing is certain, the Government will be trying to come up with a plan to avoid media headlines about the crisis in the NHS and ones that highlight hundreds if not thousands of job cuts.