Cutting frontline services and not bureaucracy could destroy NHS - Lamb

"If we are to make the NHS more efficient, we need to listen to the people who really understand it," said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary. Commenting on the leaked Department of Health report calling for 137,000 job cuts in the NHS, Norman Lamb said:

“The huge gap between what ministers say in public and the secret reports being circulated in Whitehall is becoming clearer by the day.

“While this report demonstrates the scope for efficiency savings, cutting frontline services without addressing the goliath of the NHS bureaucracy would have a disastrous impact on patient care and could destroy the service.

“The credibility of outside consultants who have squandered billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money over the last decade must be questioned.

“If we are to make the NHS more efficient, we need to listen to the people who really understand it, not management consultants whose dreadful record of failure is matched only by their over-inflated bills.”