{"id":11967,"date":"2017-03-31T15:32:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T14:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=11967"},"modified":"2017-03-31T15:32:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T14:32:16","slug":"nhs-lost-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=11967","title":{"rendered":"The NHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lost \u00c2\u0141billion?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Much was made by the government about the \u00c2\u01412bn uplift it had given the NHS in for 2015\/2016 for frontline services. But where did all that money go?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nearly \u00c2\u01411bn \u00e2\u20ac\u201c almost half \u00e2\u20ac\u201c went into the hands of private and non-NHS providers, according to a new damning report from the Health Foundation.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The independent think tank found that \u00c2\u0141900m of the \u00c2\u01412bn that the Tory government promised before the 2015 general election was diverted by local commissioning groups away from the NHS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Much of the money went to private companies, and it is understood that some of the funding was also diverted to local authorities to help plug the funding gap in social care.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In total, it is estimated that local commissioning groups spend \u00c2\u01411 out of every \u00c2\u01418 outside the NHS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The massive expenditure on private providers, the Health Foundation says, is because NHS hospitals are running at full capacity and simply cannot cope with rising A&E demand and older people being stuck in hospital because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no adequate care in the community.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alarming <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said the figures were alarming and revealed the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 true agenda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe public will rightly be alarmed that \u00c2\u0141900m was spent treating patients in the private sector when our frontline services remain in desperate need of increased funding,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he told Huffington Post UK.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLabour always warned that the Tory NHS reorganisation that no one wanted would mean taxpayers money flowing to the private sector and away from the NHS frontline,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a disgrace and Labour will reverse this Tory privatisation agenda.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnder Theresa May hospitals remain at dangerously overcrowded putting patient safety and wellbeing at risk, because of this government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ongoing refusal to properly fund frontline services and our social care system.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite national officer for health Sarah Carpenter agreed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is further evidence that this Tory government is determined to erode the concept of the NHS as a universal service available for all at the point of delivery,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe onward march of the privatisation of the NHS only benefits the Tory ideologues with their blinkered bias against the NHS and the private healthcare companies that will be raking in fat profits which would be better spent on frontline services.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnfortunately, the findings of The Health Foundation don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come as a surprise \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it is the latest chapter in the sorry tale of how this government regards the NHS. What the NHS needs is a large cash injection in real terms to be spent on \u00e2\u20ac\u0098in house\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 NHS services and not the private sector.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Health Foundation director of research and economics Anita Charlesworth said the think tank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report showed that the NHS is fast becoming an \u00e2\u20ac\u015bemergency service\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bRising demand for emergency care meant that NHS providers haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had the capacity to deliver planned care and patients had to be diverted outside the NHS,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she noted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Big deficits\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNHS hospitals were left squeezed by sharply rising drug and staff costs with little additional funding. The result was big deficits that had to be covered by raids on investment budgets.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She added that in addition to more funding, the NHS needs to think long-term as it plans its workforce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIncreasing the number of consultants by a fifth without investing in nurses is a prime example of short term cost savings undermining the essential task of improving long-term productivity,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWith no obvious end to austerity there must be a decisive shift from short-term policy making.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just last week, Unite singled out<\/a> the ever-growing role of highly paid management consultants \u00e2\u20ac\u201c under new Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), which carve up England into 44 geographic areas, these consultants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 primary role is to plan services in their area, which may mean cutting services altogether.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Freedom of information requests made by the Press Association found that more than \u00c2\u014117m \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at the very least \u00e2\u20ac\u201c has been paid out to big consulting firms such as KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and McKinsey among others by STPs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite argues that the language used by the Tory government is purposely arcane \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it devises terminology such as \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSTP\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in order to confuse the public and hide its aims to privatise the NHS through the backdoor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

STPs, Carpenter noted, are nothing less than \u00e2\u20ac\u015ba Trojan Horse designed to accelerate the privatisation agenda.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out more about Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign against STPs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much was made by the government about the \u00c2\u01412bn uplift it had given the NHS in for 2015\/2016 for frontline services. But where did all that money go?   Nearly \u00c2\u01411bn \u00e2\u20ac\u201c almost half \u00e2\u20ac\u201c went into the hands of private and non-NHS providers, according to a new damning report from the Health Foundation.   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[75,81,632],"wps_subtitle":"Frontline funding goes adrift","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11969,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11967\/revisions\/11969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}