Responsibility for NHS deficits ‘across the system’

The responsibility for the financial situation of the NHS should be spread across the whole system to include primary care trusts (PCTs), foundation trusts and the Department of Health, it has been claimed.

NHS Alliance reported that the responsibility for the multi-million pound deficits recently revealed by a House of Commons health select committee should be distributed around the system.

Michael Sobanja, chief executive of the NHS Alliance, said: “We live with a statutory responsibility to live within a finite budget and demand for health improvements and healthcare from populations and ever increasing demands from government on productivity and the ability to do things with that money.”

He noted that initiatives from central government can commit PCTs to spending more money and added that while it was correct of the government to set appropriate standards for the health service, it is important that these targets are achievable.

The alliance suggested that a greater timescale giving health organisations more flexibility to deal with their financial situation would be preferable to “pumping in money” to resolve the issue of deficits in the NHS.

David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, this week announced the aim of delivering a net surplus of ?250 million across the health service by the end of 2007-08.