Exclusive: Mackey tells trusts to curb clinical staff growth

  • Some trusts could have fewer clinical staff after regulators’ intervention
  • Jim Mackey says trusts that exceed 1:8 nurse to patient ratio will be told “we can’t afford that”
  • Trusts that fail to improve their finances may have to merge or be taken over, HSJ understands

Interventions taken by regulators in the coming weeks to regain control of NHS finances could result in some providers having fewer clinical staff, HSJ has been told.

Efforts to reduce the provider deficit are set to focus on 30-40 trusts where the pay bill either increased substantially last year, or which have planned for growth in 2016-17.

In an exclusive interview, Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS Improvement, said trusts exceeding the ratio of one nurse to every eight patients could be told “we can’t afford that”.

For full article see HSJ 13 July 2016