New NHS head backs community hospitals

Community hospitals should play a bigger role especially in the care of older patients, the new head of the NHS in England has saidaccording to Simon Stevens, the new Chief Executive of the NHS.

In an interview in the Daily Telegraph, Simon Stevens signalled a change in policy by calling for a shift away from big centralised hospitals.

The health service chief executive said there needed to be new models of care built around smaller local hospitals.

The NHS said he was not suggesting the return of 50s-style cottage hospitals.

In recent years the health service has emphasised the benefits of centralised services. This has paid dividends in areas such as stroke care and major trauma where significant benefits have been gained by concentrating specialist care.

But it has been seen as a question mark over the future of the many smaller district general hospitals across the NHS such as West Cumberland Hospital.

In the interview in Friday's paper, Mr Stevens said they should play an important part in providing care, especially for the growing number of older patents who could be treated closer to home.

He said: "A number of other countries have found it possible to run viable local hospitals serving smaller communities than sometimes we think are sustainable in the NHS.

"Most of western Europe has hospitals which are able to serve their local communities, without everything having to be centralised."

Mr Stephens said that elderly patients were increasingly ending up in hospital unnecessarily because they had not been given care which could have kept them at home.

Mr Stevens also told the Telegraph:

  • The NHS needs to abandon a fixation with "mass centralisation" and instead invest in community services to care for the elderly
  • Waiting targets introduced by Labour became "an impediment to care" in too many cases
  • The European Working Time Directive damaged health care in the NHS, making it harder to keep small hospitals open
  • Businesses should financially reward employees for losing weight and adopting healthy lifestyles

Comments

Jim said…
Chris, you can't just leave open an important issue.
You are moving away from the European Union Parliament.

Now in which group will they sit, will it be the EPP (european peoples paty) where they sat for years, perhaps it will be the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) group as now they are seated
but then this may give in to UKIP who sit in the EFD (Europe of freedom and democracy) group.

for reasons already detailed then the conservative party need to take this advise- move over to EFD
4:33 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
The fact that I sometimes post things here about hospitals and other important issues besides Europe does not mean that I have stopped paying any attention at all to the EU.

That question is an easy one, we may have lost a few seats and our leader in the UK but the Conservatives and Reformists group as a whole is if anything stronger after these elections.

There is no reason at all to abandon the ECR group and it would not make sense to go back to the EPP.
3:59 pm
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