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The NHS could become the coalition's biggest headache again

Patient care is set to worsen next year, warn NHS finance directors.

By George Eaton Published 27 September 2012 9:50

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will struggle to prevent a further fall in patient satisfaction. Photograph: Getty Images.

The NHS didn't receive a mention in Nick Clegg's speech yesterday, but the state of the service is likely to become one of the government's biggest headaches in 2013. The latest King's Fund survey found that 40% NHS finance directors expect patient care to "worsen over the next few years" and that two-thirds believe there is a "high" or "very high" risk that the service will not achieve efficiency savings of £20bn by 2015.

Although spending is ring-fenced, healthcare inflation is significantly higher than the general rate, so the NHS will be continually forced to do more with less, particularly if, as expected, George Osborne carves out £1.7bn from its budget in order to pay for social care reform.

The political problem for the government is that while it could have blamed the service's problems on the fiscal situation, its inept reforms (for which it had no mandate) mean that it will now take the flak. Patient satisfaction fell from 70% to 58% last year, the largest annual drop since 1983 , a trend that is likely to continue this year. The number of patients who are waiting for more than four hours in A&E, for instance, is at its highest level since 2005. And David Cameron's decision to appoint Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary provides the media with every incentive it needs to highlight the NHS's failings.

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Tags: NHS David Cameron Jeremy Hunt Coalition

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7 comments

Thu, 2012-09-27 14:41 — Chris_cjr56 (not verified)

The basic problem with the NHS is that it is primairily run for the benefit of its employees and patient care is secondary. As such, it shrouds itself in processes and procedures whereby waste, which is rampant, goes unchecked and no-one in the NHS takes or accepts responsibility for their own actions. One of the few sensible comments to emerge from Lansley's NHS reforms was a letter to the Times from a London consultant pointing out that the NHS was established to eliminate a select few diseases. It was never designed to be all things to all men health wise. It has just morphed into that and hence become unmanageable and unaccountable. There are certain things - cancer care, lekaemia - where the NHS is world class. In other areas, notably geriatrics, it is worse than third world.The fact it is a political football doesnt help rational debate on reform but it absorbs too much national wealth to avoid reform.

Fri, 2012-09-28 04:01 — Toriesarelousylovers (not verified)

So not the 2nd most efficient health service in the world, then? (Royal Society of Medicine, quoted in Guardian/society/2011/aug/07)
Private healthcare runs at an average of 15% admin costs: NHS 9%. Still, never let a fact ruin a good old-fashioned Tory rant, eh?

Fri, 2012-09-28 00:13 — Rev Graeme Hancocks (not verified)

"The basic problem with the NHS is that it is primairily run for the benefit of its employees and patient care is secondary".

WHAT UTTER RUBBISH.

I am going through treatment for a serious cancer. It was picked up, diagnosed and treatment started within a couple of weeks. Not all aspects of treatment and hospitals - I have been in 4 in the last 2 months - are equally as good, but on the whole the service and staff have been fantastic.

You do not know what you are talking about.

Thu, 2012-09-27 21:01 — Andytheonlyhammer (not verified)

You clearly have no direct knowlage of the NHS. Please stop embarassing yourself.

Thu, 2012-09-27 16:02 — Dark Heart of Toryland (not verified)

The problems of lack of accountability are only exacerbated by the attempt to run the NHS along the lines of a commercial enterprise. Outsourcing to private business will certainly make such problems far worse, as processes become more opaque and wasteful, and shrouded from public scrutiny by the demands of 'commercial confidentiality'. And after all, the main purpose of the private health industry is to extract bonuses for its CEOs, and profits for its shareholders. Patient care is concerned only in as much as it contributes to this primary purpose.

Thu, 2012-09-27 15:42 — JamesMoore26 (not verified)

The basic problem is that insurance companies have been eyeing this as a potential growth market and have provided all the "donations" towards it happening. The NHS expanded and so did the NI contributions which are very high premiums which should cover things. There may be waste but most of it comes from politicians who make political capital out of anything they can get their hands on usually to the detriment of the people