Hewitt: NHS accounts balanced by 2008

Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, has said that the financial balance of the NHS will be restored by 2008.

Last week MPs announced plans for an inquiry into the level of NHS trust deficits, estimated to be ?700 million, resulting in the axing of 7,000 members of staff in the last few weeks.

However, Ms Hewitt told ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby programme that she expected waiting lists to be effectively abolished by 2008 and added that the government will be ready to achieve the “enormous targets it has set itself.

She said: “We have a financial deficit at the moment in the NHS, it is around 1 per cent. If you are on ?20,000 a year that is like ending the year with an overdraft of about 200. It is a problem, but it is a manageable problem.”

Earlier Ms Hewitt said on BBC Radio Five Live’s Weekend News that the NHS was having its “best year ever” because of reduced waiting times and the lack of a winter beds crisis, sparking angry outbursts from unions and opposition parties. The Royal College of Nursing said the government is “in denial” and David Cameron, the Conservative leader, told Sky News that he wondered what planet she was living on.

Tony Blair last week said he thought the investment in the NHS was “money well spent” and added that it was absurd to say that the NHS had not improved.

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