A West Country health authority faces a £59m deficit as a result of incompetent financial management, inspectors have found.
A report from district auditor Stephen Malyn shows that the deficit...
The billions of pounds of taxpayers' money being pumped into the NHS is improving the service, Health Secretary Alan Milburn insisted this week.
In a pre-emptive strike aimed at critics of the 1%...
Private lenders are being offered fewer opportunities to fund new social housing because of uncertainty over stock transfers.
With many councils keen to set up arm's-length management organisations...
Unison leaders said they were confident that members would support the government's Agenda for Change programme on pay and conditions in the NHS, despite rumblings of a major revolt at next week's...
Education Secretary Charles Clarke has launched a £435m programme to provide children's centres in the most deprived parts of England.
The centres will offer childcare, nursery education, parenting...
Town hall leaders are to mount a campaign against government plans for foundation hospitals, claiming they could dilute their own democratic mandate.
As Public Finance went to press, the...
Violence and aggression against staff could be costing the NHS £69m a year, the National Audit Office said this week.
In a report, A safer place to work: protecting NHS hospital and ambulance staff...
Increases in spending on drugs threatens to destabilise primary care trusts and must be brought under control, the Audit Commission warned this week.
The alert came as the Liberal Democrats...
The Department of Health will not relax hospitals' performance targets even though most may be asked to treat soldiers injured in the Iraq conflict in addition to their normal work.
Hospitals will...
Private and voluntary sector organisations could apply to become NHS foundation trusts under proposals being put forward by Health Secretary Alan Milburn, it emerged this week.
In a move that will...
An ambulance service that expanded a temporary staffing pilot into a £60m agency in a rush to meet Whitehall deadlines was left with a £10m deficit, the district auditor reported this week.
A...
The Welsh Assembly has said it will 'consider in depth' a National Audit Office recommendation to restructure the way its NHS directorate procures medicines, after auditors said it could save £50m a...
The British Medical Association and the NHS Confederation have been forced to revisit the funding formula for GP practices in the proposed new contract amid fears that family doctors could reject the...
The head of the NHS's newly beefed-up counter fraud and security agency has vowed to clamp down on violent assaults against staff in the sector after union claims that the number of incidents is on...
The NHS has reached a pivotal point in its ten-year modernisation programme and faces serious challenges in the next few years, according to a report by an influential group of health care staff and...
An NHS trust this week denied it will have to close a celebrated teaching hospital because of a Private Finance Initiative 'blunder'.
St Mary's Trust said it favoured keeping its Western Eye...
Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has vowed to scrap NHS waiting list targets if the party wins the next election, under plans outlined in a consultation document.
Tapping into the...
Backbench Labour MPs leading the rebellion against government plans to introduce elite foundation hospitals have indicated they expect significant concessions in the controversial Bill when it is...
It was not the news that Health Secretary Alan Milburn already facing an embarrassing backbench revolt over foundation trusts and accusations of widespread waiting list fiddling by hospitals...
As the fallout from the Audit Commission's damning report on NHS waiting lists gathers pace, health management bodies have called for immediate action by ministers to prevent a 'witch-hunt' that...
The next 12 months could make or break the government's public services reform agenda, the new leader of the union movement has warned.
In an interview with Public Finance , Brendan Barber, who...
Central and local government must 'give up a bit of power' to tackle social exclusion in partnership with voluntary and community bodies.
That was the message from Office of the Deputy Prime...
The Liberal Democrats outlined their alternative 'cash-back' Budget this week, pledging free care for the elderly and the abolition of tuition and top-up fees for students, but no increases in public...
A West Country hospital trust accused of doctoring its waiting lists and accumulating millions of pounds in debts this week claimed it is on the mend, despite an Audit Commission report expressing '...
Ian Pearson, Northern Ireland's interim finance minister during the suspension of the Assembly, has announced a £2bn spending programme under the Reinvestment and Reform Initiative agreed last year...
