Health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt has been urged to inject more money into the NHS, ‘which can no longer deliver what is required of it’.
In a letter from NHS Provider, chief executive Chris Hopson highlighted the current pressures in health and cares services, saying ‘it’s now impossible to meet the standards of care set out in the NHS constitution alongside fully recovering performance targets and consistently maintaining high-quality patient care’.
‘Unsustainable pressures’
Health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt has been urged to inject more money into the NHS, ‘which can no longer deliver what is required of it’.
In a letter from NHS Provider, chief executive Chris Hopson highlighted the current pressures in health and cares services, saying ‘it’s now impossible to meet the standards of care set out in the NHS constitution alongside fully recovering performance targets and consistently maintaining high-quality patient care’.
‘Unsustainable pressures’
The letter reads: ‘We are writing to you now as we believe the current winter pressures facing the NHS have brought us to a watershed moment.
‘The current approach to managing winter pressures has become unsustainable – in the words of one of our board members this week, ‘we can’t carry on trying to manage the NHS in this way’.
‘This is symptomatic of a much wider issue – the mismatch between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding and workforce available and the subsequent fragility of the wider NHS.
‘As a result, care in too many places has fallen below the standard we would all want, with knock on effects throughout the wider health and care system.’
NHS Provider argues that to ‘regain the 18-week elective surgery standard alone would cost an estimated minimum of £2 to 2.5bn far more than the Budget’s £1.6bn of revenue funding’.
Hunt’s acknowledgement
With a much higher spike of flu cases than at any time since winter 2009 and almost 17,000 people waiting in ambulances for more than one hour during Christmas week, the highest number this winter, many healthcare professionals fear over compromised patient safety levels.
Debating the NHS winter crisis in the House of Common on 10 January, Mr Hunt acknowledged that the NHS needs more money.
He said: ‘I have said publicly that, as we come to the end of the five year forward view, we need to seek a consensus on the next stage for the NHS.
‘We will need significantly more funding in the years ahead, and we need to build a national consensus on how to find that funding. My view is that we should try to do that for a 10-year period, not a five-year period.’
