NHS fights '£500m budget deficit'

Beds have been cut by some strategic health authorities

Hospital wards and operating theatres are being cut and redundancies made as the NHS battles with a £500m deficit, a survey says.

Strategic health authority (SHA) finance directors also said the NHS would still be £225m in debt by the end of the financial year despite the cuts.

Half the 27 SHAs quizzed by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) said they would be in debt by the end of March.

Many blamed new doctor contracts, waiting list targets and A&E treatment.

The average deficit stands at £18m, the HSJ reported.

The largest overspend was reported in south-west London at £69.2m, with West Yorkshire following on £40m.

The magazine also detailed what cuts were being made.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts is closing five wards and four operating theatres to save money.

And Southampton University Hospital has already shut two-nurse led units, cut 120 beds and made 100 redundancies to save up to £15m.

Nigel Edwards, policy director of the NHS Confederation, told the HSJ mid-year financial pressure were common.

But he warned: "There are signs this year that a combination of pressures is making this balancing act harder to achieve."

Only one SHA - south-east London - was unable to provide figures.

A Department of Health spokesman played down the deficit.

"We expect by year-end that the majority of NHS organisations and the NHS as a whole will achieve financial balance in 2004-05."

But Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Taxpayers are not getting value for money in the NHS as hospitals spiral into debt.

"We must cut bureaucracy and waste."

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4150021.stm

Govt "exaggerating" number of NHS staff

The government has published charts creating a distorted impression of employment in the Department of Health by exaggerating the increase in the number of staff over the past three years.

In last year's annual publication of the National Health Service workforce figures, reporting 2003 data, about 60,000 health workers were dropped from the previous years' figures. As a result, the published bar chart appeared to show a steeper rise in employment than had actually occurred, supporting the government's assertion that the extra resources pouring into the health service were being reflected in higher staffing.

The chart was described by independent statisticians as one of the most blatant misrepresentations of data seen in a government publication.

The department said it stood by "the validity of the presentation of the figures in the report", adding that "the graphs are a representation and not for research purposes or academics". It said anyone with a serious interest in the numbers would not look for them in the chart, which was designed just for "casual readers".

It added that no one had complained about the chart since publication and complaints about it were "petty".

This is not the first time statistics from the health department have come under fire. Problems in the past couple of years have included uncertainties about the star ratings for hospitals, early leaking of data to the press, the lack of coherence and accessibility of data on their website. The department has conducted very few "quality reviews" of its data. The unreliability of the hospital waiting list data (used to monitor the election pledge to cut lists) has entered statistical folklore.

Sheila Bird, who led a review of government performance data for the Royal Statistical Society, said it was "preposterous to present charts when you can't trust the figures", adding the document "fails to match the basic expectations on presentation" that the RSS would hope for. The Statistics Commission and the RSS are expected to raise the issue with the department.

Several other concerns were voiced about the presentation of data in the document. Alison Macfarlane, a health specialist at London's City University, said the claim that managers numbered only 35,000, about 3 per cent of the workforce, was also dubious. She said many bureaucrats were put into other categories, such as the 72,200 working in "hotel, property and estates", 92,300 working in "central functions" and 88,000 non-medically qualified people working in GP practices. The figure also excluded the record-keepers and secretaries among the 360,700 offering support to clinical staff.

Andrew Lansley, Conservative health spokesman, said he expected the government to present "a full and rounded picture" of the health service given the importance of health in the forthcoming election.

He wrote to Sir Nigel Crisp, NHS chief executive, to complain about what he felt was a distorted impression of improvements given in the latest NHS annual report and said he had yet to receive a reply.

The above was first published by the Financial Times today

Bliar's nanny state

Listed below are some of the steps that the labour government has taken to nanny and subjugate the UK populace in 2004:

DECEMBER
Launches it's annual drunk driving campaign. Omits to mention that drunk drivers in the UK kill less than a tenth of the number of people who are killed by superbugs in dirty UK hospitals.

Launches another no smoking campaign including the announcement of legislation to ban smoking in public places.

OCTOBER
Govt announces that all pregnant women are to be asked by their doctors and midwives whether they are being abused by their husbands and boyfriends as part of a plan to tackle domestic violence.

Department of Health launches a major campaign to persuade people to cut down on sugar in their diet.

Government introduces a bill that would ban parents from smacking their children. The House of Commons backed a compromise where parents can still administer a mild smack- as long as it's not visible.

SEPTEMBER
The hunting bill, which calls for a total ban on hunting, is passed in the House of Commons.

The govt's Food Standards Agency laucnches a campaign warning that salt raises blood pressure and leads to heart attacks.

JUNE
Govt announces tougher controls on the gaming industry aimed at protecting youngsters and vulnerable gamblers.

MAY
Govt introduces a consultation paper which would place new restrictions on the owners of licenced shotguns.

MARCH
Govt recommends an diet that includes at least five portions of fruit or vegatobles per day in a "five-a-day" campaign.