Market reforms have failed NHS, concludes key parliamentary committee‏

The House of Commons Health Committee has published a damning report on the waste of money and excessive transaction costs of the market system in the NHS. UNISON submitted detailed evidence to the Select Committee's inquiry into Commissioning and the final report supports the union's position in a numberof key areas:

• the Committee reports that management and transaction costs have risen as a result of the purchaser / provider split;
• it concludes that Payment by Results increases transaction costs and provides hospitals with incentives to keep patients in hospital rather than treating them in the community as other government policy advises; and
• the report points out that the FESC system of bringing in private companies to advise the NHS is an expensive way for the health service to go about making improvements - it calls on the Department of Health to determine whether the taxpayer is getting value for money or not.

The Committee acknowledges that under current Health Secretary Andy Burnham the government has begun to move away from market reforms, by announcing that the NHS is the "preferred provider" - a policy change which UNISON campaigned hard for.

See full FT report at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0f03fbae-3b54-11df-b622-00144feabdc0.html