Cost of NHS reforms rising by £1m a day

Spreadsheet put out by Department of Health as part of revised business plan says cost of transition is now £1.49bn. The cost of the government’s plans to reform the NHS is rising by almost £1m a day, the Guardian has learned. The information – in a spreadsheet put out by the Department of Health as part of its revised business plan last week – saw officials admit that the cost of transition was now £1.49bn. The figure is £160m more than the previous estimate, issued six months ago when the reforms bill was first published. In January, the department estimated the total cost of the structural change to be £1.33bn. The health bill was amended following suggestions by the Future Forum, a committee set up by David Cameron to head off criticism over the wide-ranging reforms. But the effect appears to have been to increase significantly the cost of the changes to the taxpayer. A new impact assessment will be completed by the Department of Health following the forum’s recommendations. Analysis by the Health Service Journal revealed that the transition to placing health budgets in the hands of GPs has already cost £228m since last July. The size, scale and cost of the reforms have long troubled MPs and health service professionals. Trade unions claim three-quarters of the estimated cost of the transition will go towards redundancy payments to 20,000 staff, suggesting average settlements of more than £45,000. John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: “People will be shocked at the scale of wasted cost due to David Cameron’s NHS upheaval. “These new figures, slipped out by the Department of Health, show that the costs of this unnecessary reorganisation are spiralling out of control. “The government is forcing these changes without knowing how much they will cost and before they have been approved by parliament. The last year has been a wasted year for the NHS, with services being cut back and long waiting times returning.” Alan Maynard, the professor of health economics at York University, said the “delays and time taken for the reforms have really begun to affect morale and work ethic”. He added: “People just won’t work if they don’t know where they will be next year or whether they have a job.” The Department of Health said the benefits of the changes would “far outweigh” the costs. At the time the bill was published, ministers pointed out that NHS Information Centre figures showed that between 1999 and 2009 under Labour, the number of health service managers increased from 23,378 to 42,509, adding that the difference was close to the number of expected redundancies. Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said the new, slimmed-down NHS would reap a financial bonanza of more than £11bn – mostly down to reduced “administrative” spend. NHS Health Health policy Andrew Lansley Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 28, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.