Earl Howeasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many managers currently engaged in NHS primary care they expect to be made redundant as a result of the abolition of fundholding; how much they expect such redundancies to cost; and what annual saving in management costs they expect will be achieved as a result of the reorganisation of NHS primary care. [HL2052]
50WA
§ Baroness Jay of PaddingtonWe hope that those staff skilled in primary care commissioning will be retained wherever possible at the practice, primary care group, or health authority level. Recent guidance (HSC 1998/065) asked health authorities, in partnership with shadow primary care groups, to start work on strategies to manage the human resource issues flowing from the transition to primary care groups, including arrangements for displaced staff. The scope for clearing house arrangements is under consideration. It is therefore too early to estimate the potential costs of redundancies.
Our estimates are that in total the Government's changes to the National Health Service will yield savings in bureaucracy and management costs, freeing up £1 billion for patient care over five years. Within this, general practitioner fundholding (which covered a minority of hospital and community health services for half the population) will be replaced by primary care groups covering all services across the whole of the population, while containing expenditure to a level below that planned by the previous government for fundholding administration in 1997–98.