U-turns and the future for NHS

What is the future for NHS, given all the U-turns?  Will we see Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), and what will they really be like?  What role does the House of Commons Parliamentary Health Select Committee have in all of this?  

NHS has certain challenges just at the moment.  For 10 years under the New Labour government, NHS saw unprecedented investment, with not a lot to show for it.  The critics somehow forgot that it takes 25 years to turn out an experienced doctor and over 10 years to turn out an experienced nurse, so massive investment in training was always likely to take time to show through.

Waits reduced massively.  Let's put this into context - at the start of Tony Blair's government, waiting times for urgent surgery could be 18 months.  By the end, the 18 week rule meant that average waiting times were 9 weeks and maximum waits were 18 weeks - that means that over a period of 13 years the waits had reduced by nearly a month per year.  That means fitting 13 months' work into each 12 months (on average, in fact the change was much faster and more painful than this).  

The ConDem government has cut funding - drastically.  You may have noticed waiting times beginning to get longer. Now you know why this makes a difference - delay patients by 1 month and you only pay for 11 months' care in a 12 month period, an 8% cut in spend.

But what does the future hold?  Read my thoughts on Blogcritics