Secret cost-cutting plans described as a “death knell” for the NHS will result in longer waiting times, rationing of care, job losses and ward closures at hospitals in London, a new leak has revealed.
Details of the proposals, part of a national savings drive designed to cap NHS spending, have been called “shocking restrictions on care quality and access for patients” by politicians.
North Central London is one of 14 regions across the country in which senior NHS managers have been told to make “difficult choices” to curb overspending.
A document leaked to The Guardian sets out how care at 10 hospital trusts in Camden, Islington, Haringey, Barnet and Enfield – including the Royal Free and Great Ormond Street children’s hospital – could be cut back.
These include job losses to reduce “admin costs”, increasing waiting times past the current 18-week limit, and the closure or downgrading of services, likely to put smaller hospitals such as North Middlesex Hospital in Enfield at risk, reported the newspaper.
The document is said to outline plans to plug a £183.1 deficit at the London trusts – singled out by health bodies NHS England and NHS Improvement as one of the most severe in the country.
But Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said the proposals, known as the “capped expenditure process”, would result in “a postcode lottery where healthcare varies depending on where you live”.
He said Theresa May’s “weak and unstable” Government has “huge questions to answer about this new NHS ‘capped expenditure process’”, which is “in reality a Tory NHS ‘hit-list’ drawn up in secrecy during the election campaign.”.
“It’s an absolute scandal that, whilst Parliament and the public were concentrating on the election campaign, this was being rushed through in secret, ready for immediate approval by ministers in the expectation of a Tory victory at the general election,” said Mr Ashworth.
“Now we learn detailed proposals for North London involve shocking restrictions on care quality and access for patients.”
Other ideas under consideration as part of the programme, which aims to ensure NHS spending meets budget targets for this year, include limiting the number of operations carried out by non-NHS providers to make sure funding stays within the health service, which could limit patients’ choice of providers.
NHS funding could also be withdrawn for new and recently-approved treatments and those considered “low value” – adding to the list of prescription items such as cough medicine and gluten-free food that patients were made to pay for earlier this year.
Louise Irvine, a GP who stood against Jeremy Hunt in his South West Surrey constituency at the general election, coming second with 20 per cent of the vote, previously told The Independent the “truly shocking” scale of the proposed cuts and closures represent a “death knell” for the founding values of the NHS.
Commenting on the plans, an NHS England spokeswomen told the Health Service Journal: “Within their fair share of the NHS budget, local doctors and hospitals are planning how best to deliver services to patients focussing on the priorities of the public, including modern cancer care, expanded mental health and convenient GP services.
“While many options will have been considered locally, the choices of which options to pursue are still to be evaluated and agreed and would require national sign-off in due course.”
London doctors have had to react quickly to a series of tragedies in the capital, including a devastating fire at a Grenfell Tower in west London and terror attacks in Finbury Park, London Bridge and in Westminster in March.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the NHS's response to London Bridge attack, tweeting: ”Thank you to our amazing NHS staff for your world-class treatment of those injured in Saturday's horrific attack.“
All 48 people injured in the incident survived after three terrorists ploughed a hire van into pedestrians on London Bridge before crashing the vehicle and stabbing random victims around Borough Market on 3 June. Eight people died in the atrocity.
