NHS Reform

Many of us listened with dread to the announcement by Matt Hancock the health secretary of another reorganisation of the NHS. I would question whether this is such a brilliant idea whilst we are not yet out of the pandemic. Most of us have not received the first vaccine jab let alone the second. Part of the government's drive appears to be a reaction to some of the problems highlighted by the pandemic and the lack of control of many aspects of the NHS by government ministers.

Whilst individual NHS staff members have served Andover well over the years, I do feel that the NHS bureaucracy and sets of overlapping quangos have failed us. Our growing town needs additional resources that have not been delivered. It was not so long ago that they were considering shutting down Andover Memorial Hospital let alone the ambulance station. Medical and care facilities are a key part of any infrastructure of our town.

Reforms need to be done when the NHS system is not under its current state of crisis and staff totally exhausted. I believe that we need to consider three key questions. The first is what services are we expecting to provide through the NHS. Are we are going to be really serious about mental health and provide the resources? The organisational structure needs to follow the services. The second issue Is that NHS users must be more involved and part of the system. It would help if the NHS was regarded as less of a religion and more as a provider of services key to all our lives. Despite best efforts user engagement is sporadic and I would argue for example that many disasters in maternity services would have been avoided if patients had been listened to. The final point is that we need to move away from the current bureaucratic and quango structures to something which is a lot more flexible and adapted to the 21st century. We need to look at best practice across the world and learn from it. We should not be afraid to demand better.