Almost half of family doctors and practice nurses do not believe their local hospitals are good enough to treat their own families, a poll has found.
The findings come on the eve of reforms which will hand NHS budgets to groups of GPs, who will decide which hospital and community services to fund and will be able to wield the axe on those which are substandard.
When he drew up the plans, Andrew Lansley, the then health secretary, said the changes would allow clinical staff to shape local services to better meet the needs of their community and encourage providers to compete for patients.
The poll of more than 1,000 doctors, nurses and practice managers working in GP surgeries revealed deep dissatisfaction with the quality of services provided by many hospitals, with just 54 per cent saying they would be happy for a member of their family to be treated there.
Doctors’ leaders said the findings suggested many clinical staff would be keen to use their new powers to pull funding away from their local service and into the hospitals which are rated best by the public.
Frontline staff working in GP surgeries were, however, far more confident about the quality of services at their own practice. In total, 77 per cent said they would be happy for relatives to be treated there.
The Government has introduced a “friends and family” test under which all hospital and GP services will be rated by the views of their own staff on whether they would be happy for their relations to be treated there.
Senior doctors said the poll’s findings reflected “real concerns” about standards of hospital care at a time when the finances of the NHS are under increasing pressure as investment fails to keep up with an ageing population.
Dr Charles Alessi, a GP and chairman of the National Association of Primary Care, said: “The concerns about the quality of hospital services really stand out, and this is where the reforms should strengthen the levers for change and enable clinicians to improve the services on which their patients rely.”
He warned that many parts of the country would experience “significant disruption” when the 212 GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which from Monday will take control of £80 billion of NHS cash, drew up plans to reshape hospital services, which could mean the closure of some units.
Last night, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary said: “After the scandal of Mid Staffordshire, we are clear that problems should not, and must not, be swept under the carpet. If there is a better way of doing something, the best placed people to make that judgment are local GPs.
“If they want to change their local provider, and that change is justified in patients’ interests, then they should be able to make that choice. But we are clear that competition and any associated changes should always be used in patients’ interests and certainly not for its own sake.”
Victoria Vaughan, the editor-in-chief of Campden Health, the publishing and research company which conducted the poll, said: “If GPs wouldn’t want their own family members referred to their local hospital then there is clearly something wrong.”
She said that those in charge of the CCGs would face difficult decisions and need support from politicians if the reforms were to work.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
