Health Budget "Fiddled"

To save Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt's skin, hospitals are forcing patients to wait longer for operations. The books desperately need to be balanced and new figures suggest the NHS is heading for a financial surplus this year.

The prediction of a £13m surplus is directly at the expense of cutting sevices, slashing jobs and reducing training of nurses and doctors. Hewitt has staked her Cabinet future on ending the financial crisis. The Tories claim that the NHS is in worse financial shape than at any time in its history.

"Ministers today might try to claim a small NHS surplus but this smoke and mirrors figure has only been achieved by raiding essential NHS training budgets, freezing posts, shedding jobs and cutting services": Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. The NHS total gross deficit, in the last quarter, had risen from £1.179 billion -> £1.318 billion = £139 million (Department of Health figures).

The financial crisis has forced many trusts to postpone or cancel operations. Patricia Hewitt's skin is being saved only by savage cuts to centrally-held budgets. The 2007 year looks worse than 2006 with 23,000 staff posts being axed and nearly 3000 beds closed in an effort to balance the books.

And, of course, all those cancelled operations.

Such is the price of saving one individual's
(Patricia Hewitt's thick) skin

Ego