NHS reform: Ten Things to Argue About

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It is my belief that there is ample evidence to support the following:-

  • Closing small “A&E” Departments and concentrating emergency surgery (and emergency medicine) on fewer sites saves lives.
  • Closing “A&E” and replacing with an Urgent Care Centre does not save any money.
  • Foundation Trusts are no more innovative than NHS Trusts.
  • It takes significant investment and a period of double running costs to move care out of hospital.
  • Most Foundation Trusts do not want to treat more private patients.
  • Private providers providing services to NHS patients (over £1bn for elective surgery in 2011) do not provide poor quality.
  • Acute hospitals do not admit patients unnecessarily, but a better system would have fewer admissions.
  • Acute Trusts do not elicit more patients to get ill so they get greater income any more than ambulance services encourage 999 calls.
  • We have little or no idea how effective or efficient primary and community care are, as the data is not available.
  • In any period of tight funding mental health and learning disability suffer worse than acute care.

Anyone disagree and able to supply evidence?