The Sustainability and Transformation Plans: a critical assessment

John Lister | January 25, 2017 | Analyses


John Lister assesses the published drafts of the plans for implementing the Five Year Forward View published by NHS England in 2014. They envisage a major switch of treatment from hospitals to non-hospital settings, and a reduction in the need for healthcare through measures to prevent illness and through helping people to take more care of their own health. NHS services are expected to become more accessible and effective while at the same time costing less, and thus closing the growing funding gap between what the government is committed to spend and what the NHS, as currently organised, needs.

The assessment finds that the plans rest on implausible assumptions and lack credible implementation measures. It concludes that the scale of the planned reduction in hospital services implies rationing and risks the collapse of some services.

The Sustainability and Transformation Plans: a critical assessment

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About the author

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John Lister

John Lister has been a journalist since 1975, and specialised in health policy issues for the past 33 years as Information Director/researcher of pressure group London Health Emergency, specialising in the evidence-based critique of policies of privatisation, austerity cutbacks and introduction of competitive market reforms to the British National Health Service.See all posts by John Lister