Health select committee says hospitals are resorting to 'salami slicing' as they try to find £20bn in efficiency savings
Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has defended his NHS shakeup in the face of a scathing report from MPs which said the overhaul was undermining efforts to cut spending and make the health service more efficient.
In its highly critical report, published on Tuesday, the health select committee said hospitals were resorting to short-term "salami slicing" as they tried to find £20bn in efficiency savings by 2014-15.
"The reorganisation process continues to complicate the push for efficiency gains," the report said. "Although it may have facilitated savings in some cases, we heard that it more often creates disruption and distraction that hinders the ability of organisations to consider truly effective ways of reforming service delivery and releasing savings."
The committee's report also noted a "marked disconnect between the concerns expressed by those responsible for delivering services and the relative optimism of the government" when it comes to achieving the cuts.
The attack is especially wounding because the committee is chaired by one of Lansley's Tory predecessors, Stephen Dorrell, and is dominated by Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs.
During a round of interviews aimed at fending off the criticism, the health secretary dismissed the report as "Westminster nonsense".
"I think the select committee's report is not only out of date but it is also, I think, unfair to the NHS – because people in the NHS, in hospitals and in the community services are very focused on ensuring that they deliver the best care to patients and that they live within the financial challenges that clearly all of us have at the moment," he told ITV Daybreak.
"I am afraid the evidence points to the fact that they are doing that extremely well."
Lansley said the NHS was being managed well and insisted the focus remained on improving performance. "There are things happening across the NHS that are really doing well," he told Sky News.
"I think, frankly, people working in the NHS … instead of seeing this kind of Westminster nonsense, what they want to see is that people are recognising that they are working very hard, they are saving resources and reinvesting them for the benefit of patients.
"On most of the measures of performance, they are improving that performance."
The health secretary accused the committee of failing to substantiate its claims, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Clearly someone can go around the country and say someone's made the wrong decision … frankly, sometimes, they make the wrong decisions.
"But of course we have 150 different places across the country where they have to make decisions about local priorities and it's not my job to try and second-guess all of those."
The report comes days after all the major health unions – representing doctors, nurses and midwives – stated their "outright opposition" to the health and social care bill, which is being debated by parliament.
However, Lansley said the bill was backed by many NHS professionals, telling Today: "Where we are is there has been support for the principles of what we are doing, including from many of the professional organisations."
The report also rebukes Lansley's department for giving NHS bodies only weeks to prepare bids for £300m of capital funding over the Christmas period.
"At a time when all NHS bodies are being required to make efficiencies and need to plan strategically to reshape services, it is unhelpful for the Department of Health to require them to make bids for capital funding to short deadlines and without adequate preparation," the document says.
As part of an examination of the state of social care, the committee says there is "precious little evidence of the urgency" required being given to integrating health and care services.
It expresses "deep concern" that £116m of £648m earmarked to improving the link between the two had been spent simply "sustaining existing eligibility criteria".
It also calls for urgent investigation of the possibility of "passporting" more NHS funds directly to the sector, and warns that more vulnerable people are losing out on state-funded help.
"In spite of government assurances, local authorities are having to raise eligibility criteria in order to maintain social care services to those in greatest need," it adds. The Guardian
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