The NHS in England will make cuts of £400 per head of population over the next four years, claim health campaigners Health Emergency.
Seven of the ten strategic health authorities (SHAs) in England have mapped out cuts totaling £15bn over that period.
The remaining three SHAs (North East, Yorkshire and Humber and East of England) have yet to reveal the scale of their planned cuts. However, estimates based on their current share of NHS spending suggest that they would bring the total to around £20bn.
By far the biggest cuts (averaging £673 per head of population) will fall on London, with West Midlands facing the next biggest at £450 per head. Most other regions are looking at cuts of between £290 and £400 per head. The smallest cuts appear to be in the East Midlands (£187 per head).
Staff numbers will bear the brunt of the cut backs, claims Health Emergency. NHS North West, NHS South East Coast and NHS Yorkshire and Humberside are seeking to reduce staffing by 10%, in line with last summer’s controversial McKinsey report.
Detailed plans in North East London spell out the need to cut nursing costs by a third, spending on doctors by 40% and other overhead costs by over 30%. And University Hospitals of Leicester Trust is already planning to axe 700 jobs to cut spending by £58m in the next year (£5m per month). Similar policies will soon be emerging across the country, campaigners claim.
NHS London is setting the pace on cutting back, where there are plans to slash spending by over £5bn. This will also be achieved by axing up to a third of hospital beds, a wholesale switch of A&E and outpatient treatment away from hospitals to health centres and polyclinics, cuts of a third in the length of patient consultation times with GPs, and cuts of up to two thirds in spending on primary care and community services.
The NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson set a challenge in 2009 for authorities to make savings of between £15bn and £20bn between 2011 and 2014.
Health Emergency information director Dr John Lister said: “Thousands of health workers’ jobs could be axed in every region. But it’s clear that patients and the public are being deliberately kept in the dark as these plans for unacceptable cuts are hatched up behind closed doors.
“Obviously these cuts are driven first and foremost not by NHS or public sector failure, but by the deficit caused by the banking crisis. But instead of cutting wasteful spending on management consultants, profiteering private providers and pointless NHS bureaucracy, these cuts are biting in to the bone of basic frontline services. Health bosses everywhere must be told this will not be accepted.”
