We don't want to say it but we will “We told you so!”
The Health and Care Act of 2018 broke up the NHS in England into 42 separate regional health authorities and introduced private firms into the central direction of the regional NHS management, through, what is called a “Provider Forum” of the local, Greater Manchester Integrated Care Structure (GM ICS).
We, in Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) Greater Manchester warned the 11 local Councils in Greater Manchester who welcomed the new “integrated” care structure, that they were not acting in their constituents' best interests. The new system was undemocratic, with no local control of the Integrated Care Board (with only one elected representative on it); and by accepting a Tory budget that went along with the new structure, they would be forced to make Tory budget cuts for them – doing the Tories' dirty work for them.
"Five years later, all 42 regional Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England are in deficit - in total, by about £1000 million".
But Greater Manchester ICS (and North East London) are the most heavily overdrawn. From April to the end of August 2023, the GM Integrated Care Board thought they would be £20 million overspent. In fact they were in deficit for £125million.
So Greater Manchester ICB brought in some so-called “turn around” directors - and is desperately negotiating with their financial masters in NHS England and The Treasury. But as a spokesperson for Greater Manchester ICB said ”...with multiple pressures.... we need to put measures in place to ensure we save money...” that is, their only way forward is to cut more NHS services and bring more distress to Greater Manchester service users.
From April to the end of August 2023, the GM Integrated Care Board thought they would be £20 million overspent. In fact they were in deficit for £125million.
Every independent NHS management association and think tank, besides us NHS campaigners and NHS trade unions, recognise that the Tory budgets are totally inadequate to provide a humane, decent health service.
But you won't hear anything like that from the public consultations or websites of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
We say “Come clean, GM ICB!” Don't hide what the real situation is in the NHS, with glossy brochures and “public consultations” which lack any financial information in them. Declare to the millions of NHS supporters in Greater Manchester, that you are trying to manage an unsustainable, faltering, crisis - ridden NHS – deliberately engineered by a Tory government.
Join with NHS campaigners in your area, sympathetic political parties and trade unions to lobby for a decent, public, free NHS that the people of England deserve (and that UK can afford).
