No more money for NHS, says new chief executive
The NHS has 'maxed out' what is affordable, its new chief executive has said.
Sir Jim Mackey said the NHS had as much money as it was going to get and that there had been 'no conversations about tax rises' with Wes Streeting.
The 58-year-old, who took over from Amanda Pritchard in April, said it was 'now about delivering better value for money'.
He also said that 'we are all to blame' for the current state of the NHS, as he acknowledged that there were 'completely unacceptable things going on' across the country.
In particular, he cited issues like 'old ladies being in corridors next to EDs [emergency departments]' and the failings of maternity units.
Commenting on the £200 billion budget and getting NHS trusts to cut costs after they forecast a £6.6 billion deficit for the financial year, Sir Jim told reporters: 'The NHS is such a big part of public spending now we are pretty much maxed out on what's affordable.
'It is really now about delivering better value for money, getting more change, delivering on the getting back to reasonable productivity levels, but in a way that's human, and it's about standards and about quality.'
Asked if there would be tax rises to fund the NHS 10-year health plan, he said: 'It's not been any part of our conversations that there will be a big tax raise to fund the NHS. I'm obviously not part of those political decisions, but it's not been factored in at all.
He added: 'We've got a few big balls in the air around the 10-year plan, the spending review, but in the end, it will be about how we get back better value for the money that we've got. We will get some growth in the spending review, but it's never enough.
'So we'll have choices to make, the biggest choices will be about how we tackle variation and improve service standards and productivity in this next period.'
Sir Jim said it was about 'trying to get beyond the things that have become a bit normalised over recent years that we would never have accepted'.
He added: 'So 10 years ago, we would have never accepted old ladies being on corridors next to an EDs for hours on end and they've become normal in the NHS. We've got to get ourselves out of that, and everybody wants to get out of it. It's just very, very hard to do.'
He said 'the impact and dignity of people, especially old people' of long waits on trolleys in corridors was something that he found 'awful'.
The former accountant also said NHS leaders were 'all really worried about maternity' after a number of scandals and investigations into baby and maternal deaths and harms in recent years. However, he said there were issues 'in every part of the service'.
'There's lots of examples like that, where I think we've just sort of gradually moved to a point where we've accepted things that we should not really have accepted,' he added.
He said he was worried about the 'desensitisation' to the poor state of the health service where staff have found a way of working around it, which he described as 'walking with a limp'.
Sir Jim also said he was prepared to stand up to the Health Secretary and Government on behalf of the NHS despite overseeing the abolition of NHS England, which is being merged back into the Department of Health, over a two-year period, to give politicians more oversight.
He said Mr Streeting was 'actually very good at being able to cope with country views and argument and discussion' and that the 'noisy discussions are the better discussions'.
'I have no problem telling anybody what I think. So any of you that know me, if I have a view, I'm going to express it, and if I think something's wrong, I'm going to say it,' Sir Jim added.
'But I'm very confident in the way that I've seen Wes work and his political team and the Prime Minister, that they actually don't want somebody to just go along with everything, and roll over and not say if they have a view.
'And I take that seriously. I'll absolutely be clear about what my position is, but we'll try and obviously work hard to not have big, terrible disagreements or disagreements that interfere with the mission, which is improving the service for people. So it's our job to find agreement.'
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