18 November 2005
The NHS in England will remain in overall deficit this financial year, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt admitted this week.
In an Opposition Day debate on NHS finances on November 15, the health secretary refuted Conservative claims that the service had a £600m deficit in 2004/05 and was predicting deficits approaching £1bn by the end of this financial year.
She told the Commons that the majority of trusts had achieved financial balance and overall the NHS England deficit stood at £250m in 2004/05. But she admitted financial balance would not be achieved until the end of the 2006/07 financial year, and warned that trusts would have to take difficult decisions.
'In some cases there has been overspending, sometimes for several years, or poor financial management, or poor organisation of clinical services,' she said.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the £250m figure had only been achieved because strategic health authorities had underspent their budget by £372m. He said deficits meant job and bed losses – 90 community hospitals were under threat. Savings could be made by sacking managers, whose numbers had increased by 52,000 between 2000 and 2004.
However, the NHS Confederation hit back in a briefing to MPs, which said only 2.8% of the NHS workforce were managers, a lower proportion than in 1999. Without administrative staff, which included cleaners and IT staff, the service would grind to a halt, it added.
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