Stop this waste; time for NHS bosses to work with care sector – The Yorkshire Post says

THE political furore over social care reform also provides the context to the Government’s decision to allocate an extra £5.4bn to the NHS to ease winter pressures – and a record backlog of cases – before this risks causing further embarrassment.
People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the government to tackle NHS waiting lists.People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the government to tackle NHS waiting lists.
People take part in a protest outside Parliament in central London, calling on the government to tackle NHS waiting lists.

No one doubts the extraordinary effort undertaken by doctors, nurses and other frontline staff during the pandemic – the country will be forever in their debt. However the public’s sympathy does wane when it comes to the management elite of the NHS, the people tasked with running hospitals and services.

Despite the difficulties posed by Covid, they have still to justify why such a large proportion of the National Health Service’s budget of £221bn should be spent on a vast – and often unnecessary – bureaucracy.

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That is why Ministers will be failing patients if specific conditions are not attached to how this latest cash injection is spent. If not, NHS managers will have even less incentive to reform the way that they work and spend the hard-earned money of UK taxpayers more effectively.

The NHS is facing record waiting lists.The NHS is facing record waiting lists.
The NHS is facing record waiting lists.

But this new money will also fail to deliver the intended benefits unless it leads to far greater collaboration, co-operation and co-ordination between hospitals, local councils and the wider care sector.

And that is because the best way to treat more people, and cut waiting lists, is by ensuring that patients, particularly the elderly and immobile, do not have to stay in hospital unnecessarily until an appropriate level of community care and support becomes available.

It’s a basic lesson that, sadly, too many NHS bosses have still to learn.

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