NHS England’s plan to introduce hospital referral reviews shows how the service has been reduced to nothing more than a skeleton

‘This week a new, and potentially worrying proposal, emerged from NHS England from NHS managers who are attempting to find yet more ways to cut costs despite the enormous pressures our health service is facing.
The latest wheeze is for hospitals to no longer automatically accept a patient who has been referred to them by a GP, but for this clinical decision to be scrutinised by a panel of other doctors before it is approved. This might sound like a reasonable approach, a helpful bit of checking perhaps by fellow colleagues. However, the devil as always will be in the implementation. These panels will not it seems be there to provide a useful clinical cross checking service – there main aim will be to cut costs. In other words, insert themselves into the referral process to try and save the hospital money by not taking patients even if clinically the GP in their assessment regarded it as appropriate.’
Read more: NHS England’s plan to introduce hospital referral reviews shows how the service has been reduced to nothing more than a skeleton