The listening is over, now for the legislating. But if you’re keen to find out how
Andrew Lansley’s health reforms will look in the end, then don’t expect many clues in his article for the Telegraph today. Aside from some sustained hints about involving “town
halls” and “nurses” in the process, this is really just another explanation of why the NHS needs to change — not how it will change.
Lansley’s central justification is one that he has deployed with greater frequency over the last few weeks: that, without change, the NHS will become too cumbersome and costly a beast. Thanks to the pressures of an ageing population, more expensive treatments and technological development, he says, the service would face a funding gap of £20 billion in 2015, were the government not to act now.
It’s a striking argument, especially as it involves the Health Secretary pushing the case for savings, rather than for increased spending as an end in itself.
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