Tag Archives: NHS
GPs ‘too expensive’ to run health authorities
Bureaucrats will still run local health authorities, despite Government plans to put clinicians in charge, according to GPs who say the money is not there to pay enough doctors to run them.
By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent
6:30AM BST 18 Jul 2012
One of Andrew Lansley’s first announcements as Health Secretary was to say England’s 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) would be abolished, to be replaced by groups led by GPs.
The idea – largely approved of by medics – is that doctors will make better decisions about organising local health services for their patients than managers.
Use left-over NHS cash to pay for elderly care, say MPs
Left-over cash from NHS budgets should be handed over to local councils to pay for care for the elderly and disabled, according to MPs.
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor
7:00AM BST 16 Jul 2012
A cross-party group of MPs and peers is calling on the Government to allow money allocated to health but left unspent to be used for social care rather than being simply absorbed back into Treasury funds.
They calculate that less than half of the current annual NHS underspend would be enough to solve the immediate funding crisis in social care.
The call comes in a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Local Government, chaired by the Tory MP Heather Wheeler.
It comes in the week after the Government set out plans to overhaul care for the elderly.
