CHAIR of the King’s College Hospital NHS Trust Bob Kerslake resigned late on Sunday evening stating that the cuts he was being asked to carry out would have compromised the quality of care, welfare of the staff and endangered patient safety.
‘If we had sought to achieve what was initially set out in the so-called control total,’ Kerslake said, ‘and break even in the current year, that would mean making savings well in excess of 10% and that would not deliver the proper levels of care.
‘There was just not enough understanding of the scale of the challenge that both King’s and the NHS is currently facing. The financial situation at King’s has deteriorated very seriously over recent months.’
The trust which Kerslake was in charge of, was instructed by the regulator to make savage cuts to King’s. This it did, cutting £18m a year from the running costs of the hospital. The regulator then insisted that the cuts which have been made were not enough and has demanded more. It was at this point that Kerslake quit.
He continued: ‘We want to carry on delivering savings, but in the end the most important thing for us is the quality of care, ensuring that we run a safe hospital and the welfare of the staff, so these things must be important.’
Hospital trusts across the length and breadth of the country have been instructed by the Tory government to make similar cuts. Kerslake said: ‘This is part of a much wider debate, it isn’t just about King’s. We face here and now issues. I am deeply concerned about the position generally in London, where most of the hospitals are struggling.’
Meanwhile world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has joined a lawsuit to prevent the widespread privatisation of the NHS by the Tory government. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the introduction of the first Accountable Care Organisation (ACO) in the NHS in England.
It is scheduled to take effect in April 2018. Hawking said in a statement: ‘I am joining this legal action because the NHS is being taken in a direction which I oppose, as I stated in August, without proper public and parliamentary scrutiny, consultations and debate.
‘I want the attention of the people of England to be drawn to what is happening and for those who are entrusted with responsibility for the NHS to account openly for themselves in public, and to be judged accordingly.
‘I am concerned that accountable care organisations are an attack on the fundamental principles of the NHS. They have not been established by statute, and they appear to be being used for reducing public expenditure, for cutting services and for allowing private companies to receive and benefit from significant sums of public money for organising and providing services.’
