NHS 'is about to run out of cash' top official warns. Can the National Health Action Party help? What do you think?
The NHS is 'about to run out of cash' - and faces a £30 billion funding gap by 2020, senior health service officials have warned. An official report will call for sweeping changes - which are likely to mean the closure of local hospitals - and say Britain's health services stand on the brink of financial crisis. The scale of the problems ahead was disclosed yesterday by Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England, the central body in charge of the health service. He told an audience of technology entrepreneurs:
'We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion. Next week NHS England will be publishing a call to action. .. our analysis will disclose that by 2020 there will be a £30bn funding gap in the healthcare system.'
Last month, senior NHS doctors and managers said that up to 20 hospitals across the country may have to close, with services transferred into the community to save the health service from financial ruin.
The report by the Academy of Royal Colleges, the NHS Confederation and the patient group National Voices, said the health service would become unsustainable, with mounting waiting times in Accident and Emergency departments, and longer waiting lists for operations, without a re-organisation of England's hospitals.
Officials have said that 4,000 lives a year are lost because of poor care at weekends.
Last month, Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of NHS England, said there was a need for the health service to develop a longer term strategy.
A DoH Spokesperson said: 'The NHS is facing increasing demands - we agree that it needs to transform the way it does things in order to become more efficient.'
The above are extracts from an article in the Telegraph Newspaper on 05 Jul 2013 by Laura Donnelly, and Steven Swinford. The full article is here.
The National Health Action Party has a 10-point plan to reinstate, protect and improve the NHS. See it here.
