Job cuts at integrated care boards (ICBs) will lead to local “turmoil”, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) NHS services director Alastair Buxton this week (May 12) revealed.
In March, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to scrap NHSE and cut ICB headcounts by 50% – leaving some 12,500 ICB staff at risk of losing their jobs.
Read more: Sir Jim Mackey: ICB job cuts ‘need to be done’ by December
This week, Buxton told delegates at the annual Sigma conference that “we’re going to see probably a lot of [ICBs] merge over the next few months, so we’ve got turmoil at the local level within the NHS”.
“I know we’re all quite used to that because we’ve all seen it many times before, but it’s just another thing that often delays progress at a local level,” he warned.
“Pretty radical”?
“Thinking particularly about plans for integrated neighbourhood teams”, Buxton warned that pharmacy will not be able to “get involved” without “effective funding”.
“How radical will that 10-year plan be? We suspect pretty radical in terms of the situation that the NHS finds itself,” he added.
But the next day during a panel led by Avicenna chair Salim Jetha, former director for the company Uma Patel warned that change could be minimal.
Read more: Pharmacies to ‘play key role’ in NHS 10-year plan, says Starmer
“In my 51 years in the NHS, I have seen five major reorganisations and at every reorganisation people get fired, they get a big payout and then about 80% of them are rehired,” he told delegates.
“Those who are well connected get rehired with bigger titles and more pay, and we end up with more red tape,” he said.
Read more: NHS 10-year plan: Government ‘lazy and limited’ on prevention
In October, the government launched a months-long consultation asking the “entire nation” to help shape its ten-year year health plan to “overhaul” the NHS, which is due to be published imminently.
The announcement laid out “three big shifts in healthcare: hospital to community, analogue to digital [and] sickness to prevention”.
In a letter to Sigma delegates, Starmer said that pharmacies will play a “key role” in the hotly anticipated plan.
Read more: Pharmacists urged to ‘submit ideas’ for 10-year plan to ‘fix NHS’
But last month, former chair and president of the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC) Professor James Kingsland said that “there’s some lazy and limited thinking around prevention” within government.
And chair of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard said that he is “fearful we won’t be overwhelmed” by the plan, adding that “the expectations of the 10-year plan may disappoint with regards to prevention”.
