South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has called on top health officials to find out more about what is actually happening in NHS, as a new report says the Department of Health does not have a firm grasp of the impact of deficits on the NHS’s capacity to deliver local services.

Mr Bacon, pictured left with Dr Ian Hume of Diss Medical Centre, said: “The real impact of these deficits is being felt locally, where services are being cut and investment in much-needed facilities such as Diss Medical Centre is being put on hold.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t registering in Whitehall, where there is limited information about redundancies, closures and abandoned capital programmes.

“It is hard to reconcile the huge sums of money that have been thrown at the NHS with the fact that many Trusts are in the red. There is not one single cause for these deficits, but clearly the NHS does not possess the financial expertise it needs”.

“It has not exactly helped that Department of Health officials got their sums wrong when negotiating the national pay deals for doctors, consultants and other NHS staff, leaving the NHS to fund much of the resulting £560 million shortfall. Whitehall makes the errors but it is local health services that feel the pain”.

Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report into financial management in the NHS.  The report finds that the Department of Health does not have an overall picture of the impact of deficits on the NHS’s ability to deliver services, and that there is a lack of financial management expertise in the NHS.

Errors in the costing of the Agenda for Change pay initiative, General Practitioner and consultants contracts meant that in 2005–06, individual NHS Trusts had to help fund the resulting £560 million shortfall.  The report also finds that decisions by strategic health authorities on the amount of financial support for NHS bodies in deficit and whether deficits incurred by NHS bodies should be repaid in the next financial year are not being applied consistently across the NHS, and that there is a need to improve communication between Trust managers and clinicians.

20 March 2007

See also:
LOCAL NEWS: MP calls on NHS to fund new Diss health centre