MP’s have warned today that the NHS may be unable to make the long term measures needed to reach the efficiency savings target, with cuts being targeted to vital services.

The Commons’ Health Select Committee reported that the NHS is resorting to “salami-slicing” in an attempt to deliver the £20 billion in efficiency savings by 2014/15 demanded by the “Nicholson challenge”.

Despite repeated statements from Sir David Nicholson that the NHS requires fundamental changes to the way care is delivered, it has been revealed that many NHS organisations are focused on making immediate reductions to operating costs. A report from the committee highlighted that the reasons for this may have come from the Department of Health, as they called for 40% of the savings to come from reduced treatment prices, and only 20% to come from the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) programme.

The report stated that 19% of organisations had failed to deliver their planned efficiency savings last year, with 23% of the savings made on a non-recurrent basis. The committee warn that as a result, NHS organisations will have to find additional areas to recoup savings from in addition to these one-off cuts.

Stephen Dorrell, Chair of the Committee, stressed that the report was intended as a call for progress towards more integrated health and social care services. Highlighted as a matter of “urgency” was the need to provide high-quality and efficient services within the levels of funding, and focusing on social care as an area for targeting for increased spending.

Whilst the Health and Social Care Bill is one of the key factors attributed to affecting NHS organisations ability to save money, the committee reported that it was not entirely to blame. Dorrell stated that the NHS is “well used to management change”, and stated that the key pressures arise from the fact that demand is continuing to grow at a time when health and social care budgets have stopped growing.

“The NHS funding challenge can only be met by rethinking and redesigning the way health services are delivered now, in order to deliver lasting long-term benefits” Dorrell said.

In support of the reforms, the committee stated that the essential restructuring of services can only happen when clinicians are given more commissioning power.

Dorrell asserted that given the continued rises in demand on the system and plateau in funding, the focus of the NHS should be on delivering more efficient, more integrated services.“Deliver services such as social care, healthcare and general practice in a way that works for the patient – joined-up services for the patient. That’s how you deliver better care and it’s also how you deliver more efficient care” he said.

Original Source eHealth Insider

About Pathway Software

Pathway Software (www.pathwaysoftware.com) specialises in the design and development of patient information systems for Allied Health professionals.

Its flagship product, Therapy Manager, is an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system specifically designed for Therapy Services to provide decision makers with the ability to track and manage clinical activity and analyse cost of care by patient, episode or service. The system also demonstrably reduces administration time and the costs of managing Therapy Services.