By Richard Johnstone | 3 June 2013
Little progress has been made on integrating health and social care services in England, which risks making services financially unsustainable in the future, senior NHS managers have warned.
In a survey by the NHS Confederation, 93% of 185 NHS chief executives and chairs said only 'slight progress' or 'no progress' had been made towards integration with social care services provided by councils. A majority (61%) warned this could lead to services becoming unsustainable. This follows the pledge to better integrate care signed by the Department of Health, the NHS and local authorities last month.
The survey also found that a quarter of respondents (26%) were not confident of meeting their savings target over the next 12 months.
As part of the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention programme, the NHS in England needs to make £20bn of productivity improvements by 2015.
A substantial majority of respondents (83%) expected financial pressures in their organisations to increase over the next year.
Half of those surveyed said funding pressures had already affected waiting times and access to care in the past year, while 70% said they expected waiting times to increase in the next 12 months.
Publishing the survey ahead of the confederation’s annual conference, which starts this week, chief executive Mike Farrar said he results showed ‘serious concern about the underlying challenges facing the NHS and the pressures building on services’.
He added: ‘This survey paints some very worrying pictures. The NHS and its staff face yet another year of pressure – demands on resources are growing and finances are tightening.
‘Although our members tell us they are confident about meeting their savings challenges over the next year, a substantial majority describe the financial pressures on their organisations as serious, with one in five telling us they are the worst they have ever experienced. And they expect the temperature to continue to rise over the next year.’
The survey also found 61% of NHS leaders believes a culture change in the NHS was vital for quality of care to improve following the failures at the Mid Staffordshire foundation trust. The vast majority of respondents, 91%, added they had made 'good' or 'reasonable' progress in setting out how they would respond to the conclusions of Robert Francis' public inquiry into Mid Staffs.
Farrar said that the scale of the challenge shouldn’t be underestimated. ‘Any system that wishes to improve needs to keep moving forward and evolving, changing the way it does things. The NHS is no different.
‘People working in the NHS genuinely want to improve the care patients receive, in a way that is sustainable in the long term. Making these changes won't be easy but, as the survey shows, unless we take collective action now, we will all be worse off.’
