The NHS
The NHS has been struggling to meet the dire health needs of the tax-payer population. Needs for various healthcare services have been evolving, more so in the last few decades such that conditions such as obesity and overweight, diabetes, and drug resistance have arisen as essential healthcare concerns that face an increasing part of the general population. The adoption of new technology that saves more lives has made it impossible for the NHS to stall the increased healthcare costs that amount to 10 billion pounds annually. Moreover, changes in the health care sector, pushing for centralization of services has led to the closure of local services. As a result, people are relying more on the private sector, which undermines the purpose of NHS.
Currently, the NHS has been struggling with operational efficiency due to the reduction of government spending, making the organization to seek other methods of health care providers such as out-of-hospital to reach the vast population. However, out-of-hospital service will lead to loss of income to hospitals and requires commitment for its implementation. The government has recognized the complexity of the implementation. It has pledged to offer extra £8 billion by the end of 2020 as well as increasing the access to NHS services by making GPs available throughout the week and that patients can get appointments within 48 hours.
Concern about Funding
There has been a steady increase in NHS expenditure of 3.7% for the past three decades. The continuous economic growth of the country has disadvantaged the NHS as the government sort to reduce the resources allocation while the demand goes up. A report by the King’s Fund from 2018 projected that the government will only be able to increase expenditure on NHS up to £128 billion yet by 2022/23 the demographic change will demand a cost of at least £153 billion. As a result, NHS is likely t suffer financial constraints as the demand for health care continues to increase.
Political pressure has been identified as the sole source of funding problem in NHS. Politicians have continuously contracted to fund for critical public services, yet in the UK, government funding is not a problem. The government decided to cut funding to public corporations such as NHS is driven by other financial schemes such as tax breaks to large corporations. The wealthy have also been benefitting from capital gains and inheritance taxes further reducing revenues that could be used for NHS funding by another £1.5 billion.
The Future of NHS
The NHS has been identified as a burning platform by the CQC if there is no consensus on the changes needs to ensure there is a future for the NHS. To solve the contentious policy and legislation issues, the NHS officials met in 2014. They stipulated policies and strategies that could help the NHS to deliver cost-efficient services while attaining a financial balance. They developed a 2017/2018 national service improvement priorities, including the improvement of A & E performance to accommodate demand growth and overall quality of services through partnerships and links to social services. Also, they proposed the strengthening the access to GP services along with increasingly prevalent conditions such as cancer and mental health are also set to be improved.