Politics-First-September-2014

CORRIDORS:
The NHS is approaching
a fork in the road
Andy Burnham,
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and MP for Leigh
“The Opposition is
leading the wider debate
about the future of health
and care”
such as knee, hip and cataract operations - leaving thousands of older
people struggling to cope.
The NHS in 2014 is demoralised, degraded and confused. As the
dust settles on the biggest-ever reorganisation, the damage it has
done is becoming clear. The last two years have been two lost
years of drift when the NHS needed clarity. During the battle over the
Government’s proposed reorganisation, there were claims and counterclaims
about what it would all mean. But two years later, it is clear that
the NHS has never been in a more dangerous position - and the evidence
for this is the relentless pressure on A&E.
The specific warnings Labour made ahead of the reorganisation have
come to pass. Firstly, we said it would lead to a loss of focus on finance
and a waste of NHS resources. An outrageous £3 billion and counting has
been siphoned out of the front-line to pay for back-office restructuring -
£1.4 billion of it on redundancies alone.
Just as we warned, four thousand people have been sacked and
rehired. That is simply not justifiable when almost one in three NHS
trusts in England are predicting an end-of-year deficit. David Cameron
promised he would not cut the NHS but that is precisely what is
happening across the country as trusts now struggle to balance the
books.
Secondly, Labour warned that the reorganisation would result in a
postcode lottery. A recent poll of GPs found that seven out of ten believe
that rationing of care has increased since the reorganisation.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has warned that
patients are no longer receiving the drugs they are entitled to and has
even taken the unusual step of urging them to speak up. New arbitrary,
cost-based restrictions have been introduced on essential treatments
82 Politics First September/October 2014
Thirdly, we warned that rhetoric about putting GPs in charge
was a smokescreen and the Act was a Trojan horse for competition
and privatisation. Last year, for the first time ever, the Competition
Commission intervened in the NHS to block collaboration between two
hospitals looking to improve services. Competition lawyers, not GPs,
are now the real decision-makers. The truth is that this competition
regime is a barrier to the service changes that the NHS needs to meet the
financial challenge. If we are to relieve the intense pressure on A&E, and
rise to the financial challenge, it is precisely that kind of collaboration that
the NHS needs.
The NHS has been laid low by the debilitating effects of
reorganisation, has been distracted from front-line challenges and is now
unable to make the changes it needs to make. It is a service on the wrong
path, a fast-track to fragmentation and marketisation.
The evidence of all that can been seen in the sustained pressure on
A&E – the barometer of the NHS. Hospital A&Es have now missed the
Government’s own A&E target for the last 43 weeks running. That is
unprecedented in living NHS memory – the pressure is not abating.
The reorganisation contributed very directly to the A&E crisis. Three
years ago, the College of Emergency Medicine were warning about a
growing recruitment crisis in A&E but felt like “John the Baptist crying in
the wilderness” as Ministers were obsessing on their structural reform.
As we approach the end of this Parliament, the Opposition is leading
the wider debate about the future of health and care. By endorsing full
integration of the NHS and social care, Labour has opened up an enticing
possibility: a single service for the whole person, meeting all of their
needs – physical, mental and social. With “whole person care”, we can
start where people and their families want to be – in their own homes –
and build out from there.
The NHS is approaching a fork in the road. It either continues
to embrace marketisation and fragmentation, with all the threats
that entails, or it goes in the opposite direction and becomes more
collaborative and integrated, so it can meet the challenges of the 21st
century.
The next election will decide which path it takes, and the decision will
have irreversible consequences.
www.politicsfirst.org.uk
“I have huge respect for our
doctors and nurses…” David Cameron
That’s wonderful Prime Minister, but what about all the
other NHS staff?
More than 1.3 million people work in the NHS and a significant majority of
them are not doctors or nurses.
Lazy politicians and the media insult the other professionals who work across
scores of roles delivering the best patient-centred care.
So, what phrase best describes the staff who TOGETHER deliver a worldleading
service?
Health Care Professionals
#healthcarepro
The Society and College of Radiographers
www.sor.org