The NHS would need to build 80 hospitals in the next decade just to keep up with demand, unless it makes radical reforms, the head of its watchdog says.
Ian Dalton, head of NHS Improvement, said fundamental changes in the way services are delivered were needed to ensure the survival of the NHS.
And he said hospitals needed to do far more to ensure patients got the right care at home, warning of a 300 per cent variation in the average length of stay in hospital for some conditions.
“If the NHS is to survive as the country’s most loved institution over the next decade we need to fundamentally change and improve,” he told the NHS Confederation conference in Manchester.
“It’s clear that the NHS is at a pivotal point in its history. If we do nothing, in 10 years’ time the rise in emergency admissions would require us to build – and staff – 80 new DGHs [district general hospitals] – just to stand still – that isn’t going to happen! So we have to find a different way,” he said.