A senior NHS official has admitted that funding shortages mean hip and knee replacements will have to be rationed according to pain levels in some parts of the country.
Three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in the West Midlands have proposed reducing the number of people who qualify for hip replacements by 12%, and knee replacements by 19%. To qualify under the proposed rules, patients would need to have such severe levels of pain that they could not sleep or carry out daily tasks.
Julie Wood, the chief executive of the NHS Clinical Commissioners, said the proposal was a response to financial pressures.
“Clearly the NHS doesn’t have unlimited resources,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programe. “And it has to ensure that patients get the best possible care against a backdrop of spiralling demand and increasing financial pressures.”
She admitted that decisions on hip and knee replacements “will vary in different parts of the country”, amid reports that other areas were already using pain levels to ration such operations.
Full story in The Guardian 27 January 2017