Downing Street Says » Hospital Debt

» Friday, March 18, 2005

Hospital Debt

Asked about the Times splash about the Health service, and what sort of service was it if the Government was "pouring billions" into individual funds that were still going overdraw, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) that people should put the story into perspective. The figures represented a tiny fraction of the NHS budget, and spending in the NHS had increased this year by £6 billion. The money was speeding up services, reducing waiting times, and providing more staff. The PMS said the reason some trusts were predicting a deficit at this stage was because some of them had crammed twelve months work into the first ten months of the financial year. Therefore, far from being a story about financial crisis, it was actually showing the NHS working and providing a good service to patients.

Put to her that surely if they were cramming work into the ten months, someone had to pay for the extra two months, the PMS said at the end of the day, trusts that overspend would have to make up the difference. What the PMS was reminding people, however, was that this was a small percentage – 0.7% – of the overall NHS Budget of this year.

Put to her that it was lot of money for those individual trusts, the PMS explained again that some of that money was because they had done twelve months work in ten months.

Asked whether people should be "mystified" that there was an extra £6 billion being spent, and yet wards were still being closed, the PMS said the trusts were providing more operations, facilities and better services for patients. That all cost money. There was a lot more money going into the NHS and there was a lot of work going on. We were continuing to put resources into the NHS the deal with the problems that were being described.

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Hospital Debt

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