Shrink our hospitals to give better care, says NHS chief Sir David Nicholson

He stated the well being service cannot afford to hold working its recent program, which does not correctly react to the requirements of an ageing population, and recommended that a wholesale reorganisation of care is required.

“Like each major overall health method in the globe, we encounter a big fiscal problem for the long term: the sums really don’t add up,” he writes.

“If we don’t modify, we face a funding gap that could be £30 billion by 2021.

“We know that centralised, huge units, with concentrated knowledge and technology, work greatest in offering the most successful care. So we need to have to make certain this technique is utilized to other parts of the well being services, for individuals with really rare conditions, and for significant planned surgical procedure.”

He recommended that with out radical modify, providers will not be sustainable.

“Our NHS does a fantastic job for hundreds of thousands of individuals, day in day out, but it cannot stand nevertheless – it demands to adapt to survive,” he writes.

Last yr, NHS England, the organisation he prospects, published a blueprint for adjust which calls for centralisation of key hospital providers. In the subsequent couple of months, it will publish additional programs, setting out modifications for professional solutions, and proposals to make sure GPs supply far more solutions serving bigger populations.

“The NHS proposals for adjust constantly come with controversy,” writes Sir David. “Too often the all round public interest will get misplaced in a debate about winners and losers with too much focus on buildings and not sufficient on solutions.

“This time I hope the NHS, the public, policymakers and politicians will join forces to make it take place. As somebody who has invested thirty years doing work in the NHS, I know it matters also considerably to get it incorrect.”

He said the NHS required to do more to “listen to patients and act on their concerns”. He mentioned the NHS also essential to make alterations in its use of technologies, to guarantee that citizens are “fully empowered and included in all factors of the NHS,” and understand from other sectors, this kind of as banking and retail, to let folks to entry more companies on the web.

Sir David on Tuesday addressed health care professionals and politicians, and manufactured a equivalent plea to Jeremy Hunt, the Well being Secretary, and Andy Burnham, the shadow well being secretary.

Sir David will retire subsequent month after a year in which he has been heavily criticised, following the inquiry into the Mid Staffs scandal, for his earlier function as a senior official supervising the area.

Shrink our hospitals to give better care, says NHS chief Sir David Nicholson