NHS funding changes risk lives, consultants say

Almost 350 senior consultants have warned that proposals to change NHS funding will put patients’ lives at risk.

In an open letter to Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, the experts in cancer, heart disease and other rare conditions say proposed changes intended to put more resources into care outside hospital will result in longer waits for treatment and potentially the death of patients.

At the heart of consultants’ concerns are plans that would mean hospitals dealing with large numbers of specialist cases would be reimbursed only half the cost of each extra case they take on.

The letter, whose lead author is Dr David Rosser, medical director of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, says that if the new formula is implemented there will “inevitably be avoidable deaths as patients die on waiting lists or find that their disease has progressed during the wait for treatment to the point that it is no longer curable”.

The consultants’ warning comes against the backdrop of severe financial constraints facing the service.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the NHS is suffering its tightest four-year funding settlement for 50 years.

While the government has promised a further £2bn a year from 2015, and Labour has pledged an additional £2.5bn, none of the parties has yet committed to anything close to the £8bn Mr Stevens argues is required to maintain a comprehensive, taxpayer-funded NHS.

Research commissioned by the Financial Times from the Nuffield Trust — and cited by Mr Stevens in his vision for the future of the health service, published in October — suggested that a further 17,000 hospital beds would be required by around the start of the next decade if the rate of admissions could not be curbed.

However, the experts who have signed the letter to the NHS chief executive suggest that focusing more money on preventive and community healthcare risks taking vital money away from specialist hospital treatment.

Hospitals will be forced either to turn patients away or reduce staffing levels, they warn, leading to longer waiting times that will in turn have a serious impact on health outcomes.

They tell Mr Stevens: “The clinical consequences of these longer waiting times and a lower quality service to patients with conditions such as heart disease, leukaemia, complex cancers etc will be severe.”

A significant number of patients would “suffer unnecessarily” because their cancers will have spread during the period they were waiting to be seen, requiring more extensive surgery, add the specialists.

The shortcomings of the NHS will loom large in the general election campaign when Labour will seek to capitalise on its lead over the Conservatives on the issue.

On Wednesday Andrew Gwynne, shadow health minister, urged NHS leaders to “listen carefully” to the consultants’ anxieties about the proposed new funding formula. He said: “These proposals could put lives at risk and harm patient care.”

Source Financial Times