The NHS is facing its biggest shake up in a generation with nearly 20 hospitals marked for closure and care from cradle to grave put through a wholesale overhaul to plug a £22bn black hole in health service funding, an investigation by i can reveal. An analysis of the 44 regional blueprints drawn up by health service leaders to remodel the NHS in England – in a process which critics complain has largely bypassed patients – has revealed for the first time the extent of the cuts and drastic changes in the delivery of care that the Government wants to achieve by March 2021. Until their recent release, the plans were a closely guarded secret with health chiefs instructing managers to keep draft details out of the public domain to prevent “politically sensitive” changes from leaking out. The final documents are in some cases so riddled with jargon and vague assertions that clinicians and politicians have said the impact of the plans is unknown.
Full story in iNews, 14 February 2017