NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans

George Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

To understand the significance of the Government’s creation of the sustainability and transformation plans, we need to be aware of what has gone before and consider the extent of the financial crisis. In 2012, the coalition Government passed the Health and Social Care Act, paving the way for the privatisation of the national health service and removing the duty of the Secretary of State to provide and secure a comprehensive health service in England. I believe the STPs are a key part of the Government’s plan to drive through privatisation.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the concern in our part of the world is that the word “sustainability” is all about financial sustainability, not the sustainability of services?

[Margaret Greenwood]

My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head.

Monday’s Liverpool Echo leaked some of the detail of Merseyside and Cheshire’s STP, reporting an anticipated £1 billion deficit by 2021. The STP talks about a

“need to reduce demand, reduce unwarranted variation and reduce cost.”

Those are all very nice ambitions, but the idea of trying to reduce demand just to plug a £1 billion funding gap is, frankly, the wrong way to deal with planning a sensible health service. The STP also says that there is an “appetite” for hospital reconfiguration—an appetite among whom, one might ask—as the existing set-up is unaffordable. It says there will be a requirement for

“our hospitals to be reconfigured, consolidated with less sites and clinicians and consultants working increasingly in new emerging networks.”

There is a problem with commas in the document, so who knows what it means. In other words, there will be cuts to staff and cuts to hospitals.