FEARS have been expressed by those working in the system that Cornwall’s NHS will not be able to cope financially with a backlog of treatment and the cost of the coronavirus recovery.
The head of health and care in the county has warned that the uncapped NHS spending on ’whatever is needed’ to tackle the coronavirus won’t continue for the recovery period.
Health professionals have asked whether there is going to be additional funding in place to cope with the backlog in treatment and care which will be needed as Cornwall recovers from the pandemic.
With regular health services beginning to be resumed, members of the NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) governing body said they were concerned about the resources needed to cope with a backlog and the additional numbers of people who could be in Cornwall if tourism businesses reopen.
GP Francis Old told the body’s meeting yesterday: ’If we have tourists coming down in July and August, we will have a backlog of patients that we will need to see and then have a load of extra people.
’That is all going to cost money – there is going to be a cost implication in all of this.
’Are we getting grants from government to deal with that? I do worry about it.’
Dr Old said he was also concerned about the cost of putting measures in place in GP surgeries to ensure that patients can be seen safely.
Helen Charlesworth-May is joint chief officer for health, care and wellbeing with Cornwall Council and NHS KCCG. She said: ’We have a very clear message that there is not a lot of money.
’Clearly the NHS has spent and has given us the ability to spend money on responding to the pandemic. The message coming through now is that won’t continue.
’With my local authority hat on, the local authority is getting very similar messages about expectations for local authorities to spend in areas where they had been previously encouraged.
’There is less money to support our recovery then we might have hoped.’
By Richard Whitehouse, local democracy reporter