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NHS reforms 'could prompt closures'

Increasing competition in the health service could lead to some hospital units closing, a leading doctor has warned.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, said NHS hospitals are likely to lose services to private companies under the Government's reforms, which could leave them struggling.

As a result, many trusts will be "unable to cover the costs of entire departments", which could lead to their closure, or cuts being made in other ways such as reducing staff numbers.

The warning comes as an investigation for Pulse magazine suggests one in 10 GPs on the boards of new commissioning consortia also hold an executive-level position with a private firm.

GP consortia will be in charge of £80 million of NHS funding, with GPs making decisions on where to send patients for treatment, including to private companies. The magazine said the finding exposed the "serious potential for conflict of interest in the Government's NHS reforms".

In a speech to the BMA's annual conference of hospital consultants, Dr Porter said the current "rationing" of services, together with reforms that will see NHS hospitals lose work to competitors, will result in less funding for NHS hospitals, but leave them with fixed costs.

Hospital services considered to be of low value by commissioners, for example cataract surgery, were already being stopped or rationed in some areas. "This is the true cost of shifting care from NHS hospitals into the community or to alternative providers," Dr Porter said.

"No savings are made for the NHS as a whole, but what is left behind can become a financially unviable remnant with a greater proportion of fixed costs."

Dr Porter said that the elements of the Health and Social Care Bill, currently going through Parliament, that would increase competition would have "devastating consequences" in the long term but were being downplayed by the Government.

"It has been relentlessly presented to the public as a move to put NHS money into the hands of doctors to spend wisely for their patients. However, that is far from the whole truth. The truth is that this Bill aims to transform the NHS by making the development of a market in healthcare the most important priority in the NHS."

Article property of the Press Association: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jTGsgDo3GAoOJZjClqdHk7IsgFQw?docId=N0155191300807672202A