Budget targets add more pressure to health service
Summary
'Public Expenditure’ (HC 1499) examines the progress of the health and care services in the face of increasing demands to their budgets.
The report details that hospitals are resorting to short-term "salami slicing" as they try to find £20 billion in efficiency savings by 2014-15.
The National Health Service (NHS) funding challenge can only be met by rethinking and redesigning the way health services are delivered now, if it is to deliver lasting long-term benefits.
The need to provide high-quality and efficient services that meet local needs within the funding available must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
The Committee also calls for an urgent investigation into the possibility of "passporting" more NHS funds directly to the sector, and warns that more vulnerable people are losing out on state-funded help.
"In spite of government assurances, local authorities are having to raise eligibility criteria in order to maintain social care services to those in greatest need," it adds.
The implications were first highlighted by Sir David Nicholson in May 2009, and endorsed by both the previous Government and the Coalition.
This report is a review of progress within the health and care system towards meeting the ‘Nicholson challenge’.
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