Reconfiguration of NHS services will have to speed up over the next two years to deal with the failure so far to shift sufficiently the focus of care from acute to primary care settings, MPs have been told.

England NHS chief executive David Nicholson said one of the government’s main objectives to treat more people in community settings rather than in hospitals was not working well enough.

MPs on the parliamentary public accounts committee were quizzing Department of Health officials as part of their inquiry into NHS trust financial resilience, prompted by the National Audit Office (NAO) report Securing the future sustainability of the NHS,1 published in July.

Committee chair …