Pay our hospitals when ill get back to work

HOSPITALS would be paid when they get patients "back to work" under radical plans to slash waiting lists and boost the economy.

- Jonathan Walker

A senior aide to Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the policy would tackle the "national crisis" of 2.8 million people out of a job due to poor health.

Professor Paul Corrigan, who last week was appointed strategic adviser to the Department of Health, said the NHS should be paid by results to ensure it made better use of funding.

He warned: "There is no experience on the National Health Service of actually doing something for an output. And the output isn't the person getting better, it's the person getting a job.

"So we could construct a system where NHS England is paid to do that if the person gets the job."

Setting out the plan in a podcast with thinktank the Health Foundation, Prof Corrigan said the measure "would be in the national interest" adding: "We do need these people in work."