'NHS on financial KNIFE-EDGE' May and Hammond slammed in latest funding row
According to the latest quarterly performance figures until March 2018 from NHS Improvement, which is responsible for overseeing trusts, the provider sector ended the financial year with a deficit of £960 million - £464 million above the plan set for the year. The document, which covers “the most challenging winter periods that the NHS has had”, showed the number of patients waiting over a year surged from 1,513 in March 2017 to 2,647 - and was up from the 2,179 waiting in February 2018. More than five million people attended A&E during the first three months of this year - leading to more than 1.1 million hospital admissions. The report revealed that 83.5 percent of A&E patients treated by NHS providers across England were admitted, transferred or treated within the allocated four-hour timeframe - down from 86.5 percent in the same quarter in 2017. The NHS Mandate states that 95 percent of patients attending A&E should be seen within four hours but only five A&E departments managed to meet this target during the three-month period, while half of the 10 “best performing” units didn’t even meet the target.
According to NHS Improvement, the rise in A&E activity also came at the expense of “more profitable” elective care, adding there was a “significant shortfall” of £505 million in elective and outpatient income against providers’ plans over the year. The report also highlights the NHS provider sector ended the year with a “challenging level of vacancies” of more than 92,000 posts, but NHS Improvement argued this shows staff displayed “incredible resilience” in meeting demand. It comes after Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson backed a call from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for more funding in the NHS, echoing his calls to the Prime Minister to put money earmarked for future tax cuts to the health service. Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing said: “Theresa May and Philip Hammond cannot allow this financial knife-edge to continue.
GETTY Theresa May and Philip Hammond have been criticised for leaving the NHS on a "financial knife-edge"
"Whether the Chancellor announces the extra funding in time for the NHS anniversary this summer or waits until the Autumn Budget, it must be both substantial and genuinely new money." Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at health think tank The King’s Fund, added: "Unless the long-term funding settlement promised by the Prime Minister provides the stability the service desperately needs, it is clear that standards of care will continue to deteriorate and patients will wait longer to access NHS services." NHS Improvement defended the healthcare service, saying that it has “broadly achieved financial balance for the year” after NHS England provisionally reported that it had underspent by £955 million for the commissioning of healthcare services in 2017/18. Chief Executive Ian Dalton said: "Hundreds of thousands more patients have been to A&Es this year but the NHS did not buckle under the pressure.
GETTY More than five million people attended A&E during the first three months of the year