BMA: Government wasting millions of pounds

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on the government to cease the introduction of new initiatives and targets until cost issues can be solved, claiming that they are largely responsible for the well-publicised NHS budget deficits.

Dr Paul Miller, chairman of the BMA’s central consultants and specialist committee, told BBC One’s Breakfast programme that debts were not being helped by excessive targets and expensive initiatives.

He said: “The Government needs to recognise the problem with a lot of these policies – that they are not working properly for the NHS, that they are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds.”

“Put a halt to them at least temporarily while looking at them very carefully to see why they are not working before going any further,” he added.

The latest accounting figures from the NHS are released today and are widely expected to reveal a total budget deficit of 600 million pounds, despite record investment in the health service.

In April, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, described the deficits as “manageable” and said it represented just one per cent of the NHS budget – the equivalent of someone earning 20,000 pounds a year ending up with a 200 pound overdraft, she said.

She controversially stated that the NHS was having its “best year ever” thanks to low waiting list times and the lack of a winter beds crisis.

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