The Chief Officer’s Report to the 11 August Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Governing Body meeting – to be held at Shay Stadium from 2-5pm – states that the CCG is short of money this year, and that the CCG may have to consider:
“more challenging areas for generating cost savings”
eg:
- reducing outpatient follow ups to a single follow up appointment to an elective treatment
- stopping prescribing medicines for self-limiting illnesses, vitamins, food supplements and gluten-free diets
- cherry picking patients for medical and surgical treatments, so that only those who are most likely to benefit receive them. (Update 13 August: At the 11 August Calderdale CCG Governing Body, Matt Walsh the Chief Officer clarified that limiting medical and surgical interventions to patients most likely to benefit would only apply to “procedures of limited value”, where only certain patients will benefit – not across the board.)
This is what happens when you remove the Secretary of State’s duty to provide a comprehensive, universal health service – as the 2012 Health and Social Care Act did; and then drastically underfund the NHS – as the Coalition and Tory governments have done since 2010.