Finance tops NHS bosses' concerns

4 Mar 11
NHS leaders are more worried about their budgets than the onset of GP commissioning, a survey has found.

By Mark Smulian

7 March 2011

NHS leaders are more worried about their budgets than the onset of GP commissioning, a survey has found.

The NHSConfederation asked 279 senior figures in NHS organisations to list the issues they felt would be most important in the coming year.

Finance and cost saving was rated the most important by 31% of respondents, with the transition to GP commissioning a distant third cited by 13%, behind 19% for whom quality of service and patient care was the main concern.

Only 5% said achieving foundation trust status was their most important challenge.

NHS Confederation acting chief executive Nigel Edwards said: ‘These results should set the alarm bells ringing. They show that while the Westminster village is focussing on NHS reform, finance is the issue keeping NHS chairs and chief executives awake at night.’

Good care standards and financial stability were ‘inextricably linked’, he said.

Edwards said worrying signals were already emerging from hospitals and primary care trusts ‘about significant money pressures’ in individual organisations, even though the NHS budget as a whole had been protected in October’s Spending Review.

The confederation said the NHS budget was broadly flat in real terms, but with efficiency savings of £15 to £20bn needed over the next four years to keep pace with rising demand at a time when the service must also implement the government’s move to GP commissioning.

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