Dorrell: ‘Unprecendented’ savings
Stephen Dorrell MP, chair of the health select committee, outlines the findings of its report on NHS spending:
“The government’s plans for health and social care are based on assumptions which will test these services to the limit.
“Sir David Nicholson set out the scale of the challenge facing the NHS in his chief executive’s annual report in May 2009. At that time he estimated the efficiency savings required at between £15-20 billion over the next four years.
“Those figures represent a requirement for the NHS to deliver 4% efficiency gain, four years running. There is no precedent for efficiency gain on this scale in the history of the NHS, nor has any precedent yet been found of any healthcare system anywhere in the world doing anything similar.
“The requirement to deliver this result (which we refer to as the Nicholson Challenge) has been endorsed both by Andy Burnham before the general election, and by Andrew Lansley since the general election.”
[On social services] “Taking account of. the 14% real terms reduction in total local authority expenditure anticipated by the spending review, the committee concluded that efficiency gains of between 2.0% and 3.5% per annum will be required from social service departments to avoid the requirement for service reductions.”
