NHS Budget handed over to local councils!

[Thereyouarepeter]

m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-31615218

So the first plan was to give a group of doctors who never wanted to be in the NHS all the NHS money - then ask them to set themselves up as community providers so they could give themselves all that NHS money.

That doesn't seem to be going down very well.

The solution...give all the money to the only group of people who will do a worse job...local politicians.

AIBU to think what the hell are people thinking?

In theory it seems like a good idea to integrate the two services. From the little information on the link I'm not seeing the negatives here.

this is happening nationally
local suthorities are taking responsibility for public health
i think in principle it's good

ah just seen the story, that is quite a change. still, these things are happening. not sure

I think integrating health budgets and social are budgets makes absolute sense. At the moment you have a situation where local authorities manage social services and public health, and the CCGs manage health. It's supposed to come together under the health and wellbeing boards but it doesn't really. I don't care whether it all sits with the CCGs or all sits with the LAs, but it makes sense for it to be joined up.

Surely it makes sense to share the load though? NHS patches them up, social care maintains them, they should be working to the same end and tbh I'd rather local councils hold the budgets than the nhs. Getting the bureaucracy out of the nhs is what everyone's been shouting for isn't it? So give it to an organisation used to dealing with those figures and used to the restrictions of local governance.

Makes sense to integrate budgets. It doesn't make sense to put LAs in charge of NHS commissioning. They aren't good at it.

yes i yhink thats my concern cheby

They're better at it than other large organisations. The problem is the public want gold plated services and only pay dust for them.

Also can't balls it up any more than the nhs management already has surely?

In principle, it's a great idea in fact. The devil may be in the detail but it could work fantastically well. It will be interesting to see if social care gets a better deal under this, with healthcare perhaps feeling a bit starved, which tbh I think is the right way round in terms of the greatest amount of happiness/quality of life (I work in healthcare myself).

It will just be a load of different psychopathic and narcissistic knobs running the show again.

meandjulio I agree. I've never understood why social care has been the poor relation to healthcare when it takes a bigger portion of the budget and has longer term input than healthcare.

I cant believe that people think the best people to be making the decisions about NHS services are politicians! The NHS should be politically neutral, objective and shaped by evidence...not lobbying, short termism, vote winning popular politics.

i think thats a red herring
the people who willbe commissioning will be commissioners. same as in health. yes they will have political pressure from above. same as inn health.
as i mentioned public health is in local authority control. it should be evidence based

Have you ever commissioned or tendered for work in the public sector then thereyoupeter? You seem so knowledgable about it...

Public health services have been decimated by Local authorities, the budgets have been ransacked since they moved across (well in the areas I know of, maybe it worked ok in others).

How so?

OhFlippityBolax...yes.

Who do you think makes decisions about the NHS now? Why do you think it's campaign catnip? Because it's a political football. Because decisions about the NHS are made by politicians...

Integration of health and social care needs to happen as soon as possible. In some hospitals up to 30% of beds are occupied by people who need social not healthcare. Where the two services are joined up, or at least working collaboratively, outcomes for these usually elderly patients are much better.

Not in England (Scotland) -but I can see on one hand it might be good thing ...but on the other our local council are crap....
I could compile a list but I won't...just often they say and do things that make my jaw drop (piss up and brewery come to mind) ...and it isn't just the elected Councillors (who don't necessarily have the right experience/knowledge to make the best call).
Other thing I'd be concerned about is them making judgements based on pleasing just one sector of the electorate. (This happens where I live and where my parents live).
We are edge of the council area, slightly different demographic to rest of area ...basically the council is run by predominately one political party and we are represented by a councillor from a different party. The main party know whatever they do they are unlikely to win this area and they don't need to - they can be in the majority no matter what we vote. So if you need to make cutbacks - be unpopular - where are you likely to make the biggest cuts? In the areas which normally vote for you and risk losing votes? Or in the one where it makes no difference?