Healthcare delivery
changes that are being made to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and NHS England without ensuring there is funding in place to pay for the changes, and without conducting an impact assessment or taking other steps to safeguard value for money.
Recommendation The Department should l Confirm that it will not announce unfunded commitments;
l Set out the likely costs, with associated funding, together with an impact assessment, for the ICB redundancies and the absorption of NHS England;
l Set out how organisational changes at local level relate to, and are properly linked with, other partner organisations such as local authorities.
Commenting on the conclusions, Clive Betts MP, Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Every unnecessary day that a patient spends on an NHS waiting list is both one of increased anxiety for that person’s unresolved case, and if they are undiagnosed, a steady increasing of risk to their life. “Every penny of funding spent to put the
NHS back on a pre-pandemic footing must be precisely targeted, or the system itself becomes an obstacle to proper care. Unfortunately, our report establishes that billions have been poured into the system over the past few years without the requisite focus on making sure that money does what it was intended for – improving outcomes for patients. “The rollout of shiny new surgical hubs and diagnostic centres will only be superficially impressive if they are not used in the most productive way. Alarmingly, in the government’s approach to the absorption of NHSE and 50% cuts to local health boards, we are now seeing chilling echoes of past failures on HS2 and the New Hospital Programme. “Our Committee has long established that
Every unnecessary day that a patient spends on an NHS waiting list is both one of increased anxiety for that person’s unresolved case, and if they are undiagnosed, a steady increasing of risk to their life.
large unfunded commitments, without plans for delivery, while good at generating headlines, can only end one way. We hope the government can provide reassurance as part of this inquiry that it can come forward with the underpinning detail that can marry its ambitions to reality.” Responding to the PAC report, Siva Anandaciva, Director of Policy, Events and Partnerships at The King’s Fund, said: “This report only adds to the steady drum beat of evidence that the UK is lagging behind other countries’ health services in recovering from the pandemic. The NHS has tackled some of the longest waits for care, which is something we should welcome. But the government still finds itself at risk of failing to meet its target of 92% of patients waiting no longer than 18-weeks for treatment by 2029. Despite it being one of the Prime Minister’s top three priorities, the progress made and political will to make this a reality, the government is finding out that achieving it will be neither quick nor easy. “The task of both reforming the NHS and getting it back on its feet is hard enough. But these changes will now happen at the same time as a massive reorganisation of the NHS. The report is right to question if this restructure could end up being the HS2 of healthcare policy and cause more distraction at a time when the NHS could be improving services. “The trade-offs surrounding the
government’s political focus on reducing waiting times must also keep being acknowledged. Waiting times clearly matter to NHS staff, patients and the public. But other areas such as measures to prevent people
from needing treatment in the first place may fall by the wayside as long as the government only has eyes for a minus symbol next to the waiting list number each month.” Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients
Association, added: “PAC findings lay bare what patients have felt for over a decade: despite billions being spent, the NHS is still not delivering the timely care people desperately need. No one should be waiting over a year for care, but in July this year, that was the reality for nearly 192,000 patients. And this is just one element of the waiting; let’s not forget patients waiting in hospital for a safe discharge, struggles to access timely primary care services, waiting for hours for an ambulance or spending time in A&E or on trolleys in corridors. “We welcome the Committee’s insistence on putting patient outcomes at the heart of NHS England planning, and we acknowledge that progress, on waiting times in particular, has been made. But despite investment, shorter waits, faster diagnoses, and safer care simply isn’t happening quickly enough. Patients are rightly concerned about their conditions worsening or how long waiting times might impact their recovery. Right now, too many patients are still being let down.”
CSJ SCAN ME
To download the full report, scan the QR code:
https://committees.parliament. uk/publications/50242/ documents/271529/default/
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