11 March 2005
A major report into the financial health of the NHS by two senior government watchdogs might be held back until after the general election, it emerged this week.
As Labour and the Conservatives increasingly made health their election battleground, the report from the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission looked set to be delayed for the fourth time.
The eagerly awaited study, the first time the NAO's annual analysis of NHS accounts and the commission's work into financial management have been merged, was due to be published in December last year. The commission revised this to February, then later March. This week, sources indicated that it wouldn't surface until the end of May, after an expected general election.
The NAO said there was 'no set date' for the report and insisted that it had not been held back, as 'there is no date yet for the election'. However, the spokesman could not confirm that it would be published before the watchdog goes into election purdah, normally a month before an election, stating that it was 'still in clearance' and had not yet been printed.
The commission said the delay was simply a 'case of not being able to set a date'.
However, the findings of the study could be potentially damaging in the run-up to the general election, although there is no evidence that either watchdog has been under pressure from ministers.
The commission's managing director for health, Andy McKeon, trailed interim findings late last year, reporting that the number of NHS bodies failing to break even in 2003/04 rose from 71 in the previous year to 107, about one in six of the total.
Auditors are also understood to be 'concerned' about the financial management in almost a quarter of all primary care trusts.
More up-to-date figures from health sources have also put the national deficit at September 30, 2004 at £499m, excluding the cost of implementing Agenda for Change.
'It's not so much the level of turnover, it's the position of individual trusts and whether there are some that are under severe financial pressure,' McKeon has told Public Finance. 'And what the real impact of that is on the delivery of services.'
News of the delay comes after controversy this week surrounding Great Ormond Street Hospital, which has closed one-fifth of its beds and cancelled operations after severe financial problems.
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