Govt NHS Reforms 'Wasted' Billions Of Pounds

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The Government has wasted billions of pounds on "damaging" NHS reforms which could have been spent on patient care, a leading think tank has claimed.

According to The King's Fund, "misguided" organisational changes introduced by the coalition have left the health service facing heightened financial pressure.

The critique is due to be published in a two-part report titled The NHS Under The Coalition Government.

It focuses on the controversial reforms led by former health secretary Andrew Lansley in the early period of the coalition.

"Historians will not be kind in their assessment of the coalition government's record on NHS reform," The King's Fund chief executive Chris Ham said.

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"The first three years of the coalition Government were wasted years because of the misguided focus on organisational changes that only recently has been compensated by this renewed emphasis on safety, quality and greater integration of care.

"Billions of pounds will have been wasted on those misguided reforms.

"The NHS therefore at the end of the parliament is experiencing both financial pressures and challenges in hitting targets that matter to patients because time, effort and money that should have been spent on patient care has been diverted into complex organisational changes."

As a result patients are being affected by a "declining performance" from the health service, particularly on waiting time targets, Mr Ham added.

The report was less critical of the coalition's approach to the NHS under Mr Lansley's successor Jeremy Hunt.

It said: "Since September 2012, Jeremy Hunt has taken the lead on damage limitation, studiously by ignoring many of the reforms promoted by his predecessor and staking his claim as the defender of patients' interests in the wake of the Francis report into failures of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust."

It also said claims of "widespread privatisation" were exaggerated.

Responding to the report, Mr Lansley said The King's Fund had been "silent on the question of whether patient care has been improved, on which the evidence is clear.

"When I was health secretary, year-long waiting times were eliminated, hospital infections dropped to their lowest levels ever, and thousands of lives were saved, and continue to be saved from improved care," he said.

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