20.02.17
Royal Commission should assess long-term future of NHS, says Lord Saatchi
The NHS needs a Royal Commission in order to address the problem of the enormous amount of strain being put on its staff over winter and ensure that its governance and care are fit for the challenges posed by the 21 century, a pamphlet written by Lord Saatchi has claimed.
The senior Tory peer writing in his Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet called ‘An NHS Royal Commission – From fighting fires to a lasting settlement’ claims that the NHS’s problem lies in the inability to have a conversation about the issues facing the health service and how to fix them.
Lord Saatchi goes on to say that the only way to positively reform the NHS is by having a “proper, grown up talk”, and getting to the heart of the problems presented by ‘alternative facts’: “These aren’t lies – it is just that there are so many different ways of looking at the same thing that rational discussion has become next to impossible”.
In the pamphlet, he said: “There is a wide range of perspectives on the current performance of the NHS, and varied confidence in its long-term future, from the pessimistic view that the system is in crisis, to the optimistic position that its only threats are meddling politicians. A Royal Commission offers significant benefits regardless of the position taken.
“A Royal Commission is an opportunity to help reverse a deterioration in some clinical outcomes, to identify and eliminate barriers to equal access, and to ensure that trusts are adequately funded to cope with current demand pressures. The solutions it arrives at could help to avert the kind of distress seen throughout the system over the 2016-17 winter.”
Commenting on his report, Saatchi said: “The timing has never been better. We have the finest medical minds in the world, and an impeccable ‘medical history’.
“If they really believed it was Her Majesty’s wish that they would all sit down together to bring forward a good plan for the nation’s health, it would happen.”
The report stated that the Royal Commission has the ability to secure the bipartisan support needed to embed lasting changes, “to detoxify reforms that otherwise may be too politically dangerous to pursue”, and to deploy its unique investigatory power to establish what reforms are needed to ensure that we have a world-class health system.
The call for a Royal Commission comes shortly before NHS Improvement released the figures for the third quarter of 2016-17. It also comes after NHS Providers called for the regulator and NHS England to lead an urgent review into how hospitals account for winter pressures following the health service’s struggles this winter.
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