£30bn MORE NHS CUTS!

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Midwives and nurses on the picket line at Hammersmith Hospital during the the national NHS strike over pay on October 13
Midwives and nurses on the picket line at Hammersmith Hospital during the the national NHS strike over pay on October 13

THE new NHS report released yesterday has revealed a further £30bn of NHS cuts by 2020.

The report entitled the ‘Five Year Forward View’ states that a £30bn shortfall in the NHS has to be addressed with a new round of ‘drastic changes to services’.

The drastic changes proposed include treating patients in their own homes, in care homes or at their local GP surgery, instead of sending them to A&Es to be treated.

The report calls for an extra £8bn funding for the NHS by 2020, but this money will not be used to develop hospitals.

Instead, the extra funding will be used to transfer services over to GP surgeries and ‘to provide care direct to care homes to prevent emergency admissions’.

Unite head of health Rachael Maskell said: ‘The best investment that the government could make in the NHS is the immediate scrapping of the Health and Social Care Act which has already squandered £3 billion in a pointless reorganisation.

‘Simon Stevens, the new chief executive of NHS England, makes precious little mention of the plummeting morale of the 1.3 million workforce which is becoming a worrying pattern for this government with its continued failure to invest in skills, retention and development.

‘In the last four years, the NHS has been battered by the funding crisis resulting in £20 billion being sucked out of the service during this parliament.’

Maskell added: ‘The NHS has been also been hit by the helter-skelter dash to privatise services with 56 per cent of new contracts going to private healthcare companies in the last year.

‘There is also the financial albatross of the private finance initiatives (PFI) which is bringing many hospitals to their knees.’

Dr Mark Porter, Chair of the BMA Council, responded: ‘Policy-makers have tried to pretend that structural reorganisation and extending a competitive market can make up for lack of proper resourcing.’

Dr Richard Vautrey, Deputy Chair of the BMA’s GP committee said: ‘General practice is under incredible pressure from a combination of rising patient demand, falling resources and an emerging shortage of GPs.

‘This is damaging GPs’ ability to deliver basic services to their patients and leaving GP practices unable to deliver the number of appointments that the public needs.’

The report has been produced by NHS England, Public Health England, the regulator Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority, Care Quality Commission and Health Education England.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England said the NHS was at a ‘crossroads’ and that the ‘NHS must fundamentally change’.

He said the extra funding would be an ‘investment to lubricate these changes’.

‘It is perfectly possible to improve and sustain the NHS over the next five years in a way that the public and patients want. But the NHS needs to change substantially.’

He claimed that, ‘We have no choice but to do this. If we do, a better NHS is possible; if we don’t, the consequences for patients will be severe.’

Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the report as ‘positive’ adding, ‘We will need to find greater efficiency savings. It will be tough to do so and don’t underestimate the challenge.’