Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England

doi:10.1136/bmj.39044.592662.BE

BMJ 2006;333:1135-1136 (2 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39044.592662.BE

Editorials

Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England

Changes need to be planned, not left to the market

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The financial pressures facing the nationalhealth service (NHS) in England, coupled with changes in medicalpractice, are raising fundamental questions about the currentconfiguration of acute hospitals. With some services being providedin people's homes and in primary care, and others being concentratedin specialist centres, the viability of the current networkof district general hospitals is in doubt.

If the closure of entire hospitals is likelyto be the exception rather than the rule, many hospitals willhave to reduce the range of services they provide to adjustto changes in their environment. This was acknowledged by DavidNicholson, the newly appointed NHS chief executive, in a recentletter to MPs in which he emphasised, "Our aim should not ...be to preserve the status quo, but to think imaginatively abouthow we can unlock the resources, both in terms of money andpeople, to re-direct them where . . . [Full text of this article]

Chris Ham, professor of health policy and management

¹ Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2RT

C.J.Ham@bham.ac.uk

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Venn, R., Forni, L. G (2006). Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England: Clinicians are fatigued by health policy and policy makers. BMJ 333: 1271-1271 [Full text]
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User perception is everything: Andrew G Craig
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bmj.com, 5 Dec 2006 [Full text]
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