Failure in the NHS is too often met with more money as opposed to closure, but the health service has little choice than to embrace system reform.
NHS impervious to reform
Sir Steven Bubb’s report exposing the failure of the NHS to reform the care of people with learning disabilities shines a light on the health service’s phenomenal ability to resist pressure to change.
Despite the NHS’s impressively frequent news of clinical and technological innovations, when it comes to reforming their original system, the health service suddenly becomes impervious.
Bubb concludes, ‘we made it too hard … to make change happen, and too easy to continue with the status quo,’ harrowingly true words given the current climate of the NHS and it’s gradual downwards spiral.
Care minister, Norman Lamb, explained how he had to personally intervene in some cases by bringing families and care managers together to try to find a way through the impasse.
According to health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, giving patients more of a say, or ‘patient choice’, would not improve performance…disconcertingly, refusing to respond to the wishes of the patient is a defeat of the NHS’s market principle.
According to the BBC and the Guardian, the NHS seems to ‘follow the money’ rather than concern itself with reform and patient care. The remaining hope for reform will be the upcoming elections, as the flow of cash forces will change and as a result, the agenda and system of the NHS will change in order to gain those funds.