HOSPITAL departments will have to close if NHS trusts fail to get their finances under control, Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secrretary, said yesterday.
Ms Hewitt refused to bail out any hospitals in the red as she disclosed that she had now sent more than a hundred letters to chairmen of NHS trusts and primary care trusts reprimanding them for financial mismanagement.
The move follows a report from the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission showing that a quarter of the 269 NHS trusts were in deficit.
The report suggests that hospitals have found it difficult to meet Government health targets within budget and are now faced with the additional costs of reforms.
Yesterday Ms Hewitt said that hospitals that were struggling would have to become more efficient by, for example, reducing the time patients stayed in hospital. “There are hospitals and hospital departments that are simply not efficient enough,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. She denied that care would worsen in trusts that were in deficit, but said that services might have to be reorganised. Departments unable to provide proper care and balance their books “will find themselves replaced by other hospitals who are doing better for that procedure”.
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Health officials admitted that the Government’s timetable to allow all trusts to apply for foundation status by 2008 might slip because hospitals might not be financially viable in time. It was also disclosed that Sir Nigel Crisp, the NHS Chief Executive, had written to the 100 trusts under the spotlight expressing disappointment. He makes clear that trusts will not be bailed out.
Ultimately Ms Hewitt can decide to transfer management of a failing hospital to private troubleshooters.
Health experts suggested yesterday that the latest reforms were putting huge burdens on the NHS. The King’s Fund think-tank said that the deficits were a “wake-up call” for the NHS and the Government.