A new report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee raises serious questions over the reorganisation of England’s NHS into 42 new “Integrated Care Boards” (ICBs) last July.
Campaigners argued that the reorganisation, embodied in the controversial Health and Care Act 2022, would lead to a loss of local accountability, and that the new bodies would be mired in deficits and the quest for massive “efficiency savings” from the outset: and early surveys of the financial plight of ICBs tends to confirm that.
It now appears from the PAC’s analysis that there are few if any compensating benefits claimed by those
The first of the report’s conclusions begins: “It is not clear what tangible benefits for patients will arise from the move to ICSs, nor is it clear by how much or by when things will improve.”
Full story in The Lowdown, 26 February 2023