Hewitt's remarks on NHS irk healthcare staff, opposition |
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Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:05
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LONDON: In a claim that surprised many, me included, health secretary Patricia Hewitt said the NHS has enjoyed its "best year ever" in spite of the financial crisis that led to thousands of job cuts.
Hewitt said on a BBC programme Sunday there is no crisis in the service and patients themselves could see there had been many improvements. "Despite the headlines, actually the NHS has just had its best year ever," she averred.
She said the so-called job cuts in recent weeks mainly affected agency and temporary staff and were reducing a "very inefficient and wasteful form of spending".
The comments got front page treatment in major British newspapers and leaders of health care workers and opposition politicians expressed disbelief at the claim. Unison, the public sector union, said the health service is being destabilised by the job cuts. Karen Jennings, head of healthcare team at Unison, said the constituents would consider industrial action over the reforms.
Hewitt is expected to address health workers at a Unison conference later today.
The NHS has already announced more than 7,000 job cuts. The Royal College of Nursing, on the eve of its annual conference, said the final number of job cuts could be 13,000. A poll of senior nurses by the college found that there had been job cuts in almost 50 per cent of hospitals in the last 12 months.
A majority of the nurses polled felt they did not have the level of staffing to give patients the desired standard of care and almost two thirds of nurse managers said they felt under too much pressure.
Beverly Malone, general secretary of the college, said patient care is suffering because of the huge pressures and demands faced by the nurse.
The opposition Conservative party said Hewitt's comments indicated that the government is not aware of the true dimensions of the crisis. MPs of the party said her authority had been undermined by her complacent reaction to a crisis created by her own department, which had totally miscalculated the cost of new contracts for nurses and doctors.
Prime minister Tony Blair, who is keen to bring the NHS back on track, is said to be critical of the functioning of the department and its failure to cut down on deficits, which are likely to reach 1 billion pounds, even when the government has brought in record level of funds into it. The issue likely to be raised at his monthly press conference today. While in all likelihood, he will deny any crisis in the NHS, he is expected to acknowledge that there are problems in implementing the health reforms.
Critics of Hewitt and her reform measures say the deficit, in spite of the government's record investment in the NHS, showed that the expensive new contracts are consuming the funds.
A spokesperson for the health think tank the King's Fund said the NHS is ending the year on a financial low, with almost a quarter of trusts and health authorities projecting a deficit at the end of the year.
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NHS fails to measure up, a third of Trusts cannot balance books 