Hewitt: Cut backs won't affect patients

Patients would not be affected said health secretary Paticia Hewitt

Friday, 17, Mar 2006 12:00

Health secretary Patricia Hewitt today denied that patients were suffering as a result of the NHS debt crisis, after one hospital trust announced it was cutting 1,000 jobs in a bid to save cash.

The university hospital of North Staffordshire will make around a seventh of its workforce redundant to help reduce a black hole of at least £15 million – one of the worst debts in the country.

Around 370 of the redundancies will be nurses and midwives, but the trust insists that savings will be made through improvements in efficiency, and freeing up to 150 beds by using more day surgery.

Ms Hewitt also rejected claims that NHS reforms had pushed the hospital into debt, saying on Today: "This particular hospital, one of a very small number with financial problems, has been taking on more work than it can actually afford.

"They have been using short-term measures to cover that spending and now that has run out.

"What I am concerned about first of all is that making sure that our patients don’t suffer, and secondly giving all possible support to the staff."

She added that the government was only half way through the NHS reform programme, which was "revealing problems" that had been building for many years in trusts like Staffordshire, and insisted that the reforms were now "helping solve the problems".

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the redundancies were "unprecedented" and was highly critical of claims that patients would not be affected.

"The government has spent a year and a half denying [the] scale of the deficit and the loss of financial control. The consequences are now evident to all," he argued.

"The loss of these jobs directly affects patients. [They] have every right to ask, after NHS resources have doubled. Where have all the resources gone?"

Policy director of the NHS confederation, Nigel Edwards, suggested the speed of NHS reform may have contributed to funding problems.

"There is some merit in [attempting reforms quickly], in that if they are going to produce a degree of turmoil it may be better to have that out of the way at once, but it is a strategy that has some risks associated with it," he told Today.