NHS at 75 - NHS Confederation CEO warns reform is needed to save lives

Failure to take difficult decisions and reform the health service is costing lives. That's the warning as the NHS approaches its 75th birthday.

Over the past number of months a number of services have hit crisis point as the system struggles to cope with pressures and staffing levels.

Matthew Taylor, NHS Confederation CEO, says "too often its been the case politicians have stood in the way of the kind of change that needs to happen."

"Yes there are risks making difficult decisions, closing particular specialisms or hospitals, but that’s not as big as the risk of not doing anything at all.”

"As a consequence of not making difficult decisions, every week there are people dying in Northern Ireland who are dying as a consequence of that lack of courage and lack of focus."

Daisy Hill, the Southwest Acute and Causeway Hospital all have one thing in common.

They have a question mark over the type of health service they are able to deliver in the future.

They all have their own pressures but change has been met with resistance from those who use the services.

Rita Devlin, Royal College of Nursing, says “ I think the public are suspicious because these things are happening very quickly and its because the services are falling over.

"If we want to make sustained change we have to include the population of Northern Ireland and we have to help them understand that this is about what is best for patients and where care can be delivered safely.

"Also economies of scale, because we are too small to have everything everywhere. "

The spotlight was firmly on the health service during covid.

If anything it opened a discussion about what kind of health service people wanted.

The consequence of the pandemic was we all understood it was  a system struggling to cope.

Alan Stout, British Medical Association, says “It was if we didn’t change that we would start to see the erosion of services and the real difficulty in terms of providing what we know we need to provide.”

“Thats the reality of what we face today, we are seeing it more and more difficult in every branch of practice.”

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