By David Williams
5 February 2010
Health minister Mike O’Brien has warned that strategic health authorities will have to ‘justify their existence’, singling the bodies out as a possible target for cuts.
O’Brien told a Commons’ health select committee hearing on commissioning yesterday that the Department of Health will be looking to enhance the role of primary care trusts while protecting spending on frontline services.
‘We can make some savings in SHAs,’ he told MPs. ‘What I’ve been talking to some officials about is how we move some of the roles of SHAs down into primary care trusts so the funding moves with it and we also take some of the cost out of SHAs.
‘I think SHAs are going to have to justify their existence much more than they have in the past… I don’t think we can just get rid of them but what we have to do is make sure they are run efficiently.’
O’Brien also angrily criticised spending by some PCTs on management consultants.
‘Some of it is frankly senior managers who have got to make a difficult decision covering their backs,’ he said. ‘Rather than make [the decision] as they are paid to do, some of them are getting in some management consultants to look at it, and paying them a lot of money… that shouldn’t be happening.’
Earlier this morning, Conservative committee member Peter Bone had asked health policy expert Chris Ham, of the University of Birmingham, whether SHAs were little more than bureaucratic providers of ‘jobs for the boys’.
Ham replied that SHAs had a role disseminating DoH performance management down from Whitehall to a local level.
But, he added: ‘Whether they need to be as big as they are with the range of staff they currently have is a good debate to have, particularly as PCTs are being required to collaborate across sectors.
‘It looks like a very crowded space between what PCTs are doing and what SHAs are doing.’
5 February 2010
Health minister Mike O’Brien has warned that strategic health authorities will have to ‘justify their existence’, singling the bodies out as a possible target for cuts.
O’Brien told a Commons’ health select committee hearing on commissioning yesterday that the Department of Health will be looking to enhance the role of primary care trusts while protecting spending on frontline services.
‘We can make some savings in SHAs,’ he told MPs. ‘What I’ve been talking to some officials about is how we move some of the roles of SHAs down into primary care trusts so the funding moves with it and we also take some of the cost out of SHAs.
‘I think SHAs are going to have to justify their existence much more than they have in the past… I don’t think we can just get rid of them but what we have to do is make sure they are run efficiently.’
O’Brien also angrily criticised spending by some PCTs on management consultants.
‘Some of it is frankly senior managers who have got to make a difficult decision covering their backs,’ he said. ‘Rather than make [the decision] as they are paid to do, some of them are getting in some management consultants to look at it, and paying them a lot of money… that shouldn’t be happening.’
Earlier this morning, Conservative committee member Peter Bone had asked health policy expert Chris Ham, of the University of Birmingham, whether SHAs were little more than bureaucratic providers of ‘jobs for the boys’.
Ham replied that SHAs had a role disseminating DoH performance management down from Whitehall to a local level.
But, he added: ‘Whether they need to be as big as they are with the range of staff they currently have is a good debate to have, particularly as PCTs are being required to collaborate across sectors.
‘It looks like a very crowded space between what PCTs are doing and what SHAs are doing.’
