‘£6bn NHS budget to be devolved to Greater Manchester’

THE £6bn health and social care budget for Greater Manchester will be taken over by regional councils under devolved NHS powers, according to reports.

The BBC said the agreement is expected to be confirmed by the Chancellor George Osborne on Friday.

It will see NHS England hand decision-making for spending on hospitals, GPs surgeries and drop-in centres to local politicians. The plan will come into force from April 2016.

It will mean council leaders and ultimately Greater Manchester’s new directly elected mayor will control how budgets are allocated.

It is hoped that by integrating health and social care services, it will ease pressure on hospitals and help to improve home care services for patients who need it.

A shadow Greater Manchester Health and Wellbeing board will be appointed. It would work closely with existing clinical commissioning groups of GPs.

The board is expected to run from April, before control of the budget is handed over a year later.

Richard Humphries, assistant director of the King’s Fund think tank, said a full transfer of responsibility would be a reform “on a breathtaking scale” but could pose serious risks.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “Depending on the detail – and the detail is really crucial and we don’t have that yet – you could either see this as a triumph for local democracy or creating real risks of yet another reorganisation of the NHS when it’s barely recovered from the last one.”