King’s fund: No quick fixes for NHS

The King’s Fund has warned that the NHS must not tackle the problem of its financial deficits by relying on short-term fixes if the health service is to avoid “a cycle of job and patient service cuts developing.”

Financial deficits in the health service are currently estimated to be running at ?700 million, due partly to unforeseen increases in wages and debt-ridden health trusts. The trust says that new reforms such as payment-by-results and patient choice are not the cause of deficits, but they could exacerbate the problems.

King’s Fund chief executive Niall Dickson said: “The priority now must be to sort out the financial mess in which the service is embroiled and to concentrate on a few key areas.”

“This means tackling long standing issues in some local services that should have been sorted years ago and getting a much tighter grip on costs and productivity,” he added.

He concluded by saying that tough targets will make further cuts in services inevitable and remarked that financial problems could threaten the government’s health reform strategy.

Last week Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, dismissed accusations of the NHS being in a crisis. She said that the deficit was equivalent to someone who earns ?20,000 per year having a ?200 overdraft at the end of the year and added that the budget was manageable.

On BBC Two’s Newsnight last night, one expert, Professor Allyson Pollock of University College London, said the deficits were due to the government trying to break the NHS up with the intention of causing it to “privatise”.

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