Press release: Confederation Calls for End to NHS Bureacracy Bidding War

02 Dec 2004

Responding to Oliver Letwin's comments on the Today programme calling for a cull of 30,000 NHS 'bureaucrats', NHS Confederation chief executive Dr Gill Morgan said:

"The Shadow Chancellor's proposal for a cull of 30,000 NHS 'bureaucrats' may be a good sound-bite but is not a substitute for a policy. 

"To claim that 'bureaucrats' are impeding efforts to deal with MRSA is an insult to the hard work of NHS managers, working alongside  clinical teams to reduce infection rates and improve hospital cleanliness.
"NHS staff deserve better. An organisation the size of the NHS, treating millions of patients a year, needs first class management and administrative staff, as well as doctors and nurses, to deliver high quality care to patients. 

 "This bureaucracy bidding war is not just demoralising for NHS staff; it also serves to perpetuate the myth that the NHS is over-managed. In reality, only 4p in every pound is spent on management costs."

Commenting on the proposal to cut the number of PCTs by half, Dr Morgan said:  "PCTs play a crucial role in co-ordinating primary care services, buying hospital care and spearheading the drive to improve public health. This is a set of tasks that can't just be stopped. Picking savings figures out of the air and then working backwards to see how you can make them stack up does little to help NHS staff in the real task of improving patient care."

Ends

Notes for editors

The NHS Confederation represents the organisations that make up the NHS. Our members include the majority of NHS trusts, primary care trusts and health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; trusts and NHS boards in Scotland; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.

Contact details

For more information, or to arrange an interview on the ISDN line (020 7959 7283), please contact Chris Atkinson on 020 7074 3304.

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