THE latest NHS ‘reorganisation’ came into force last Saturday.
This is the slashing of the number of Strategic Health Authorities in England from 28 to ten and NHS ambulance trusts from 31 to twelve.
To justify the cut in ambulance trusts, health bosses argued that half of ambulance trips to hospital may be unnecessary as patients could be treated at the scene of an accident.
A management NHS Confederation report claimed the ambulance service ‘has moved beyond a service that transports patients to another place to receive care, into a service that now has the ability, skills and resources to bring care directly to patients in their own homes or at the scene of an incident’.
The report predicted that while at present 77 per cent of 5.5 million emergency calls each year end up with patients being taken to hospital, in the future nearly two thirds of patients would be treated at the scene in England.
Indicating the government intends to close more hospitals, health minister Lord Warner commented: ‘Ambulance staff are becoming a mobile health service so that they can not only be there in an emergency, but also at other times to help people maintain their health.’
Consultant surgeon Mrs Anna Athow told News Line: ‘To say that the ambulance service can care for patients in their own homes is to suggest that ambulance staff do the work of a GP, when they should be available to transport emergency patients to hospital.
‘This policy is about using non-medically qualified staff to do the work of doctors and yet again puts patients at risk to save money.’
Meanwhile, TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber has agreed to the call from UNISON public sector union for a meeting of all health unions to ‘thrash out a strategy’ to oppose government plans for private corporations to take over the purchasing of healthcare, with an NHS budget of £64bn.
UNISON Head of Health Karen Jennings described the plans as ‘a contract to privatise the whole of primary care across the UK’.
Barber has agreed a July 12th meeting of Unison, Amicus, the GMB, TGWU, the Royal College of Nursing and other NHS professional associations.
Mrs Athow commented: ‘The British Medical Association must take part in the TUC meeting of all health unions to discuss the crisis in the NHS and discuss action.’
