NHS is run by bureaucrats who are ‘out of ideas’ and obstructing crucial reforms needed to fix it, MPs warn
The NHS is run by bureaucrats who ‘lack ideas’ and are obstructing the reforms needed to fix it, a damning report by MPs warns today.
The public accounts committee (PAC) found that while the Government’s ambitions to overhaul the health service represent a ‘golden opportunity’ to improve patient care, bosses are not willing to make the necessary changes.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, the committee chairman, said last night: ‘The Government has told the public the NHS is broken. This will not come as news to patients, nor to its staff.
‘Nor, indeed, does it to this committee, which has long warned of the systemic issues plaguing the NHS – issues which the Government has transformative ambitions to address. We were aghast, then, to find among senior officials in charge of delivering these ambitions some of the worst complacency displayed to the PAC in my time serving on it.’
NHS England is accused in the report of being ‘overly optimistic’ in its ability to improve productivity, and that the Government’s ambitions for the NHS seem to ‘run counter to officials’ lack of ideas or drive to change’.
In September, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer laid out plans for ‘three big shifts’ in the NHS: moving from hospital-based to community care; from analogue to digital; and from treating ill health to preventing people getting sick in the first place.
However, the PAC report reveals that, under questioning, officials from both the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England did not seem ready to take that on. It states: ‘There was no real urgent motivation and readiness to drive the change in the NHS that is needed.’
It also reveals the switch to digital in parts of the NHS has been ‘glacially slow’, with some Trusts still reliant on fax machines.
The NHS is run by bureaucrats who ‘lack ideas’ and are obstructing the reforms needed to fix it, a damning report by MPs warns today (stock image)
The public accounts committee (PAC) found that while the Government’s ambitions to overhaul the health service represent a ‘golden opportunity’ to improve patient care, bosses are not willing to make the necessary changes (stock image)
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, the committee chairman, said last night: ‘The Government has told the public the NHS is broken. This will not come as news to patients, nor to its staff’
Those who gave evidence to the committee included Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, and Sir Chris Wormald, the then permanent secretary to the Department of Health and Social Care. Sir Geoffrey added: ‘We have a simple message for those senior officials – truly fresh ideas and radical energy must be generated to meet what is required.’
An NHS England spokesman said last night: ‘The PAC report contains basic factual inaccuracies and a flawed understanding of how the NHS and the Government’s financial processes work.
‘While NHS productivity is now improving at double pre-pandemic levels, far from being complacent, NHS England has been open about the problem and the actions being taken to address it.’
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman added: ‘Fixing the broken NHS requires urgent and radical reform. This will be a challenge, but health leaders have said they will meet this task, and we will work with them to deliver it.’
