As the government faces rising criticism over the NHS reform bill, David Cameron has urged hospitals to cut bureaucracy rather than making doctors or nurses redundant. The Prime Minister issued his concerns on the same day as a new health watchdog was appointed on a salary of £57,000 for a two-day week.

David Cameron said, “It was not acceptable that the ranks of NHS managers had been swelling at twice the rate of nurses, and called on trusts to make savings in back office costs.”

Mr Cameron’s statement came on the back of announcements from two London Hospitals confirming that they would be axing hundreds of posts to cut costs and save money. The redundancies announced by St George’s Healthcare Trust and Kingston Hospital Foundation Trust will see nurses and high-ranking consultants loosing their jobs. 

As with St George’s Healthcare Trust and Kingston Hospital Foundation Trust other hospitals around the UK are likely to see the number of bureaucrats increasing as the number of doctor jobs, SHO jobs and specialist registrar jobs decrease as hospitals increase back office staff at the cost of frontline clinicians in an effort to save money. 

When asked at a press conference to spell out the government’s message to health bodies that need to make £20 billion of savings in three years, Mr Cameron replied, “We have put more money into the NHS, we have taken difficult decisions elsewhere, including in welfare, so the NHS is getting a real-terms increase.”

“So, yes of course, I would urge every health authority to look at what they can do in terms of saving back-office costs, saving bureaucracy and trying to keep everything on the front line.”

“What we saw over the last few years was the number of bureaucrats growing twice as fast as the number of nurses and that’s not acceptable.”

David Cameron’s criticism of more bureaucrats being appointed over nurses and doctors was issued on the same day it was announced that Dr David Bennett, a former management consultant and policy adviser under Tony Blair, is to be appointed as the new chairman of Monitor, a health regulatory body on a salary of £57,000 for two day’s work a week. 

Dr David Bennett, who is currently Monitor’s interim chief executive, takes over as chairman as the body moves from overseeing foundation trust hospitals to becoming the economic regulator for the entire NHS under the Health and Social Care Bill. 

Dr Bennett said, “The successful implementation of this next phase of reform for health and adult social care, if agreed by Parliament, will be critical to ensuring that the sector can continue to provide affordable, high quality care, and Monitor will play a central role in making sure this is so."

Despite the government’s efforts to promote the benefits of a reformed NHS, more doctors are stepping up their opposition to the controversial legislation. At a recent regional meeting of the British Medical Association, members voted in favour of a motion calling for “total opposition” to the bill.

Labour’s shadow health secretary, John Healey, said, “The Tory-led government is losing on its big NHS reorganisation. The more people see of their plans, the less they like or trust them.”

“Most GPs don’t want the changes and four in five don’t believe patient care will improve as a result.”

“David Cameron has shown with his u-turn on the selling off of the forests that he will drop policies that are damaging and deeply unpopular. He should move now rather than later to drop his plans for the NHS, and changing course would win him widespread support.”

With the government’s criticisms of hospitals increasing the number of bureaucrats being employed against the startling announcements of more doctors and nurses losing their jobs, the major concern for doctors is that patient care will be not be improved. 

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