Staff shortages
Shortages of staff are widespread within the NHS and exist across all disciplines. In 2018, reports found that there was an overall shortage of 100,000 staff in NHS England.
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Safety compromised
We all want an NHS that has safety at the heart of its service to the public. There is now evidence, however, that lack of funding has already led to compromises in safety due to issues of staffing levels, rationing and delays in treatment.
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Delays to treatment
A delay to a patient’s treatment can be due to various reasons, some are obvious, such as too few staff leading to a long wait in A&E or lack of equipment resulting in a delay to carry out a procedure or treatment.
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Deskilling the workforce
A large proportion of the NHS’s budget is spent on its workforce, indeed this cost is three-fifths of total NHS providers’ (NHS trusts and foundation trusts) expenditure.
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Cuts to frontline services
The Government has always maintained that there will be no cuts to frontline services - money must be saved through efficiency savings, and the NHS budget is ring-fenced, it says. In reality the healthcare budget has been cut and frontline services are being axed.
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A return to top-down control
In January 2016 the government began a major top-down reorganisation of the NHS in England that introduced 44 STP areas that are all are well into their 5 year plans with the primary goal of saving money and balancing the budget. Cuts to services and reduced quality of care are two consequences of these ongoing plans.
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Reductions in training
Training is very important in the NHS; the NHS needs to train new staff and it needs to keep its current staff up-to-date with changes in practice and innovations in healthcare.
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The Deficit
The past two years have seen the NHS provider sector (NHS trusts and foundation trusts) struggling to cope with increased demand, due to a growing and ageing population, plus rising costs.
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Rationing
An inevitable consequence of underfunding of the NHS is that some element of rationing creeps into the services offered by the organisation.