Union: Cuts in NHS increases ‘unwelcome’

Reports that Chancellor Gordon Brown wishes to cut the annual increase in the NHS budget have been met with unease by UNISON, the trade union.

Karen Jennings, a spokesperson for UNISON, said the news would not be welcomed among healthcare professionals in the NHS.

She told Channel 4 News: “This is going to send a collective shudder through the NHS, across managers in the NHS and importantly across all of the staff.”

“We have seen over recent months – and certainly over the last six months – major redundancies taking place, cuts in training budgets, cuts in beds, departments, community hospitals and that with the seven per cent funding that we have been receiving since 2002,” she added.

The King’s Fund, meanwhile, has said that a changing population would make the subject of NHS funding “a challenge” for some time.

Concerning the extra funding of 2.9 per cent allocated to the NHS, Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King’s fund, told the same programme: “The fact is that 2.9 per cent does mean 2.9 per cent of extra money on top of inflation so there will be extra funds for the healthcare system.”

“The challenges that it has to face in terms of extra old people, new drug costs, mounting costs of employing people and all the rest of it the health service will have to deal with,” he added.

Last month, the King’s Fund said a new cancer care plan is needed to replace the current one, devised by the government in 2000, in order to take account of funding changes and adapt to an aging population.

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