Government documents show concerns with seven-day NHS plans

Plans to expand the range of seven-day services offered by the NHS are being met with considerable concern from government officials, according to a report.

Leaked Department of Health documents revealed by the Guardian and Channel 4 News have shown that senior civil servants in charge of delivering on health secretary Jeremy Hunt's seven-day NHS pledge have highlighted numerous dangers associated with it.

The most pressing of these was workforce overload, referring to a lack of available GPs, hospital consultants and other health professionals to deliver services, as well as the fact that NHS staff have by and large not been convinced of the case for change.

Fears were also expressed that the seven-day plan will fail to deliver on its stated aim of care quality improvements, while the Brexit vote could make the effort even more difficult due to the NHS' current reliance on EU workers.

Additionally, overall scepticism surrounded the pledge to increase the NHS budget by ten billion pounds by 2020-21, as it is feared this will not be enough to deliver the promised NHS expansion by 2020.

Prof Chris Ham, chief executive of the King's Fund, said: "Implementing seven-day services is a laudable ambition but is not realistic unless additional funding becomes available and workforce challenges can be overcome."

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