Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has been remarkably successful in prising more money for the health service out of the government, but short-term ministerial thinking about the service and its resources has resulted in an unedifying, dysfunctional scramble for cash in austerity Britain. Finally, though, ideas are emerging that could change all that.
Trying to meet rising expectations without the money to do it has driven the NHS to run every part of the system hot. As fissures open up in budgets and services, the army of healthcare special interest groups such as the BMA trade union, NHS Confederation and the medical royal colleges – which collectively far outgun the rest of the public sector for political influence – portray every difficulty as a lethal crisis. When Treasury resistance is finally overcome, unrealistic promises have to be made to provide political cover for the capitulation. Then the dance begins again as the NHS pursues another set of unrealistic goals with too little money and too few staff.
Crucially, this political battle is largely disconnected from any debate around wider social policy goals, save for the fact that everyone is scrapping over taxpayers’ money.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/29/government-policy-makes-people-ill-nhs-pays-price
Trying to meet rising expectations without the money to do it has driven the NHS to run every part of the system hot. As fissures open up in budgets and services, the army of healthcare special interest groups such as the BMA trade union, NHS Confederation and the medical royal colleges – which collectively far outgun the rest of the public sector for political influence – portray every difficulty as a lethal crisis. When Treasury resistance is finally overcome, unrealistic promises have to be made to provide political cover for the capitulation. Then the dance begins again as the NHS pursues another set of unrealistic goals with too little money and too few staff.
Crucially, this political battle is largely disconnected from any debate around wider social policy goals, save for the fact that everyone is scrapping over taxpayers’ money.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/29/government-policy-makes-people-ill-nhs-pays-price
