NHS to plunge into £2.2BILLION financial blackhole
A total of 156 out of 240 trusts predict a deficit, compared with 115 who overspent by £843million last year.
Two-thirds of England’s health trusts will end this year in deficit, plunging the NHS into a £2.2billion black hole, a report warns.
A total of 156 out of 240 trusts predict a deficit, compared with 115 who overspent by £843million last year, the National Audit Office has revealed.
NAO boss Amyas Morse said: “Running a deficit seems to be becoming normal practice.”
Budgets have been hit by the bill for agency staff, which has topped £3.3billiion in the past year.
Ministers promise to pump an extra £8billion into the NHS by 2020 – while the service has to find £22billion of cuts.
Mr Morse said: “The Government’s commitment to give the NHS more funding, with almost half of this coming upfront, could be a significant step towards financial sustainability, if this funding can be devoted to improving the financial position of trusts rather than dealing with new costs.
“Continued demand for healthcare services means that the pressure on acute trusts will not go away.
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“Until there is a clear pathway for trusts to get back to financial stability, we cannot be confident that value for money will be achieved.”
Acute trusts, which include major hospitals, ran up a £958million funding gap last year – a trebling in just 12 months.
Public Accounts Committee chairman Meg Hillier branded the “severe and rapid pace” of the deterioration “simply unacceptable”.
The Labour MP also highlighted short-term emergency funding injected from Whitehall to ease the crisis.
“Some NHS and foundation trusts are only getting by on handouts, costing the taxpayer £1.8billion in 2014-15,” she warned.
“The strain placed on NHS trusts and foundation trusts shows no sign of abating.
“With an estimated £22billion gap between resources and patient demand by 2020, the NHS faces huge pressures to find savings to close this gap – but the well of sustainable efficiency savings is running dry.”
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted three months ago that the NHS is gripped by the worst financial crisis in its 67-year history.
The Tory Health Secretary blamed a “triple whammy” of more old people, a lack of Government spending and higher expectations from patients following the notorious Mid Staffs scandal, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly.
Gloomy Mr Hunt told MPs: “The first thing is to acknowledge the financial pressures on the NHS are the worst that they have ever been in its history.”
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