Submitted by Aspergillus Administrator on 10 December 2012
1000 National Health Service (NHS) doctors have signed a letter to the government expressing serious misgivings about the dissolution of NHS regional boards. Regional boards plan services and training for employees of the NHS professionals.
The current UK government heavily criticised the existing regional structure and in part of the political manifesto on which it was elected it opted to abolish many of the powers of the regional boards and replace them with a national independent body which will act through regional boards, claiming this to be a more efficient, streamlined system.
Unfortunately the regional boards seem to have been credited with vastly improving the standard of care for lung diseases in the UK and many doctors don’t want to lose this organisation. The letter says:
“The respiratory improvement programme started by the Department of Health just two years ago is starting to make real progress in improving respiratory care, whilst also saving the NHS money. “Yet the support and funding for all this work is being withdrawn from April 2013, just at the point when patients are about to really benefit. “We are concerned that patients living with respiratory disease will be left behind in the new NHS.”
The NHS is having to absorb many significant cuts as part of the need to reduce national dept incurred after the credit crisis in 2008. The new national board will be charged with making many of those savings and has the power to decide on staffing and service levels. There is thought to be potential for local needs to be ignored and this protest may well be part of the many protests designed to prevent service reductions in what doctors see as important areas to maintain.
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