We need transparency in NHS funding
We do know that over the last decade there has been a dramatic escalation in pay for the top echelons of staff in NHS “badged” services, that there has been a huge increase in the amount of money being spent on contract negotiation and contract performance monitoring for NHS service delivery and that a lack of past investment in training and facilities has left us today with elevated and onerous charges in respect of agency nursing staff and locums and a crippling burden in paying for the use of PFI hospitals. These additional costs are starving expenditure on the NHS’s core mission, the provision of patient services.
This, of course, is an embarrassing “truth” for Jeremy Hunt and the top brass at NHS England, so the last thing they want is for the details of that truth to be revealed through enhanced accountability and greater transparency at the corporate level. The details would, no doubt, confirm that a return to a publicly funded, publicly accountable, planned and public service delivered NHS should be a top priority for whichever Party wins the General Election next year.
Peter Claydon
Beckett Road
Dewsbury