division_name: Nhs Sustainability and Transformation Plans
motion: <p class="indent" pid="c948.2/2" pwmotiontext="yes">That this House notes with concern that NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans are expected to lead to significant cuts or changes to frontline services; believes that the process agreed by the Government in December 2015 lacks transparency and the timeline announced by NHS England is insufficient to finalise such a major restructure of the NHS; further believes that the timetable does not allow for adequate public or Parliamentary engagement in the formulation of the plans; and calls on the Government to publish the Plans and to provide an adequate consultation period for the public and practitioners to respond.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c950.5/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;reconfiguration of acute services within our local hospital, Colchester Hospital University Trust&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c951.6/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;this is about closing hospitals and getting capital receipts&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c951.6/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;It&#8217;s a cynical rehash of earlier plans. It&#8217;s about the breaking up and the selling off of the NHS.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c952.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;There are some concerns that NHS leaders have focused their efforts on plans for reconfiguring a few hospital services, despite evidence that major acute reconfigurations rarely actually save money and sometimes fail to improve the quality of care.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c952.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The cuts under the STPs are eye-watering&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c952.2/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;At present the Sustainability and Transformation Fund is being used largely to &#8216;sustain&#8217; in the form of plugging provider deficits rather than in transforming the system at scale and pace. If the financial situation of trusts is not resolved or, worse, deteriorates further, it is likely that the overwhelming majority of the Fund will continue to be used to correct short-term problems rather than to support long-term solutions&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c953.3/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;offer private sector and third sector organisations an enormous amount of opportunity&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c954.5/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;To reshape services over the next 10 years, the NHS will need the freedom to collaborate, integrate and merge across organisational divides.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c963.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;we have not got the cost of&#8230;adult social care really sorted out.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;one of the key aims of STPs is to achieve financial balance by 2020&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/9" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;that this will be the priority for STPs rather than developing the best models for patients.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/11" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Our assessment of draft plans shows that, in the absence of eye-watering efficiency improvements, there will be a financial gap running into hundreds of millions of pounds by 2020/21 in most of the footprints&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/13" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;it will still not be possible to achieve the financial balance expected by national regulators.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/15" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;attempting to undertake synchronised swimming against a rip tide&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c973.2/19" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c976.2/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;shows that, in the absence of eye-watering efficiency improvements, there will be a financial gap running into hundreds of millions of pounds by 2020/21 in most of the footprints&#8221;&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c978.6/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;must be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.&#8221;&#8212;[Official Report, <phrase class="date" code="2016-05-25">25 May</phrase> 2016; Vol. 611, c. 534.]</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c981.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;There is a growing consensus that one of the most powerful ways to achieve change is through local services working together&#8212;across entire communities and pathways of care&#8212;to find ways to close the gaps between where we are now, and where we need to be in the future.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c989.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;fundamental changes in the shape and nature of health and care services.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c991.2/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;need to reduce demand, reduce unwarranted variation and reduce cost.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c991.2/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;our hospitals to be reconfigured, consolidated with less sites and clinicians and consultants working increasingly in new emerging networks.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c991.4/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the shape and size of the hospital&#8217;s bed base will need to be reconfigured&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c992.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;for local use, and there are no plans to publish them centrally&#8221;&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c993.2/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;becoming a rallying point for opposition to service reconfigurations.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;will require our hospitals to be reconfigured, consolidated with less sites and clinicians and consultants.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the success of STPs will depend on having an open, engaging, and iterative process that involves patients, carers, citizens, clinicians, local community partners, parliamentarians, the independent and voluntary sectors, and local government&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The June submissions were a &#8216;checkpoint&#8217; and will not be published.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/14" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The reconfiguration of services&#8230;is clinically led and a matter for the local National Health Service.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/17" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;In Kent and Medway, NHS England is doing everything it can to keep local government out of it.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/20" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;left out in the cold and not involved in the integration agenda.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/23" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We must be realistic about what STPs can achieve&#8230;and what they can deliver in terms of the &#163;23 billion efficiencies required. It should not be overestimated.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/25" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been visiting a lot of STPs and nobody I&#8217;ve spoken to is confident they can reduce the financial gap.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c994.0/29" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;we face a stark choice of investing the resources required to keep up with demand or watching the NHS slowly deteriorate&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="italic" pid="c998.2/5" pwmotiontext="yes">The House divided:</p>
  
  <p pid="c998.2/6" pwmotiontext="yes">Ayes 195, Noes 280.</p>