socialist London's NHS Trusts and Primary Care Trusts face projected deficits this ycal totalling over £300m, according to the latest Department of Health figures. Even that could be an optimistic view.
Almost a quarter of the capital's 69 Trusts and PCTs face a worse financial problem than last year, and several face monumental deficits involving a very large chunk of their budgets:
• Bromley Hospitals Trust faces an 8.6% shortfall:
• Kingston PCT is expecting to be 9.7% adrift;
• Lewisham Hospital 9.8%;
• North West London Hospitals 11.5%;
• Whipps Cross Hospital 18.4%;
• Hillingdon PCT 26.9%
• and the PFI-funded Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich is technically bankrupt, with a staggering 32.3% shortfall.
Trusts and PCTs face huge problems trying to rein in spending while facing the usual winter pressures and trying to meet tough government targets for performance.
The new and completely unaccountable London Strategic Health Authority has already made clear its agenda of forcing through farreaching cuts and closures of www.socialistresistance.net A&E and other hospital services, and is forcing the pace in mental health cuts.
Among the general hospitals known to be at risk of losing some or all of their present services are
• both Epsom & St Helier in SW London,
• Queen Mary's in Sidcup,
• Whipps Cross in North East London,
• Chase Farm in Enfield,
• and Central Middlesex or Northwick Park in NW London
The Department's habit of adding together the (rather questionable) surpluses of a small minority of Trusts and
them against the (probably under-stated) deficits of other Trusts is very deceptive: it seems to suggest that the net picture in the capital is a deficit of just €135mless than half the real problem.
And for managers in the 15 London Trusts and PCTs struggling with projected deficits of f5m or more, and for many more who have fiddled the figures to make things look better, or who are only now coming to terms with the size of their deficit, it
is no consolation to know that another Trust down the road 1s sat on a suro us Other Trusts and PCTs facing some of the biggest problems appear to be concentrated in the south of the with the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust £29m in the red (12.5% of Get your union branch or organisation to support the fightback to defend our NHS. Affiliate to Keep Our NHS Public and London Health Emergency www.keepournhspublic.com • www.healthemergency.org.uk
SAVE turnover) and Gravesham Trust in Kent discovering a £16m deficit after predicting break-even, Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust £19m (12.5%) adrift, and a massive £255m of projected deficits in the East of England SHA, including 3 PCTs and four hospital Trusts with deficits
No. 40 December 2006 FIAL ДОТ SALE www.keepournhspublic.com Keep Our NHS Public Steering Committee members lead a coalition of marchers on the November 1 Lobby of Parliament. SEE INSIDE p 7
on or above in ot turnover -WOrST problem being Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon, with a deficit equivalent to 56% of budget. Patricia Hewitt's team are bracing themselves for a new round of unpopular cuts and "reconfigurations", many of them hatched up by highlypaid management consultants, that will decimate services across much of the Home Counties.
The huge deficits run up by so many local NHS bodies can only be resolved two ways: massive and damaging cuts that will devastate services, or a fight for government action and resources to rescue the NHS from the danger of meltdown.