As part of a countrywide reorganisation by NHS England, local health chiefs have recently published a plan which is apparently to transform ways of delivering health services across Bath and north east Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. Health organisations and local authorities across England have been required to produce Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) showing how they will dramatically improve healthcare whilst at the same time saving large amounts of cash.
It is difficult to understand how health providers could be expected through ‘efficiency savings’ and ‘new ways of working’ to improve the services underfunded and NHS staff are overstretched.
However, under threat that if they don’t come up with a satisfactory plan there will be no additional funding, our local health organisations have published their STP which they claim will not only improve our healthcare services and our quality of life but will also save £290 million per year by 2020/21.
The 73-page document is long on ‘vision’ and rhetoric but short on detail as to how economies are to be achieved.
Full story in Bath Chronicle 12 January 2017