Liberating the NHS

摘要

Welcome to the Spring issue of Today's Anaesthetist which finds us four months into an extraordinary year. Natural disasters on an unprecedented scale - middle east civil unrest, surging energy costs, and all this in the midst of the greatest challenge yet to the "western" capitalist economic model. We all knew 2011 would be a difficult and interesting year, but expectations have been exceeded so far. Anyone who has had even a passing look at the coalition government's white paper consultation "Liberating the NHS' will have seen the first rumblings of what could turn out to be one of the biggest shake-ups in medical training in generations. The government's ambition is to save around pouns20 billion through efficiency to "re-invest" in front line care. Part of this saving appears to come from taxing "end users" (ie healthcare providers) for the cost of training health professionals. Training decisions, planning, and execution will be devolved to local level with the lofty ambitions of allowing local needs to determine skill mix and numbers in bespoke "tailored" training programs. Part of the aim is to reduce the annual pound2 billion cost of agency workers across the NHS by empowering hospitals to increase training and cover shortages more flexibly.