by Arthur Reynolds, The Critic
The needs of patients must be put ahead of the niche enthusiasms of staff
As reported by The Times, the Prime Minister has told his Health Secretary, Yvette Cooper, that additional funding for patient care must be found in existing NHS budgets. For once, allow me to praise Mr Burnham: this is the kind of financial discipline the health service has needed for decades.
The NHS has enjoyed so many “record funding settlements” that the phrase has become devoid of all meaning. In England alone, it spends more than £200 billion per year — enough to build HS2 and Heathrow’s third runway and be left with £70bn in change. And what have patients received in return? They are more likely to die of cancer than Colombians or Costa Ricans. It’s little wonder 59 per cent of the public believe reforming the NHS should take priority over increasing its funding.
Health officials, however, keep prescribing the same remedy. “Anonymous Whitehall sources” briefed The Times that Burnham’s refusal to open his wallet will pile pressure on hospitals as winter approaches. As a speechwriter to successive health secretaries, I’ve seen this movie before. Whenever the NHS faces a spending squeeze, civil servants present ministers with a binary choice: spend more money or watch patient care deteriorate. Their argument has a powerful moral pull — no minister wants to accept more deaths or longer waiting times — but this framing conveniently omits another option: reforming the NHS’s culture to put patients first.