Controversial plans to transform and integrate health and social care services require at least £9.5bn of capital funding – but NHS leaders don’t have the cash and will ask for demands to be ‘reviewed’ and ‘refined’.
Voices from the regions
BMA Yorkshire regional council chair Rajeev Gupta – whose region has requested around a billion pounds
‘It is very disappointing. Areas need to be given a clear instruction of what money they have got and then they can work out how you can redesign services to make that work.
‘It’s a lot of wasted time and resources. And it’s caused great disillusionment and frustration for the people who have put the plan together. They should have just said, here’s £100m – what are your priorities?
‘The huge amount of money wasted in running these engagements and drawing up the plan is huge. And it looks futile at this point in time.
‘There hasn’t been a full mapping of the needs of the community, and the plan doesn’t seem to fit well with those needs.
‘There is no denial about change being needed in Yorkshire but an awful lot of what is proposed isn’t in the public arena and is cooked up in the offices of people who are supervising and chairing the STPs.
‘Clinicians have not been engaged at all.’