Marching for the NHS in Bolsover, August 2014

Marching for the NHS in Bolsover, August 2014   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

£4 billion funding black hole

Bail out the NHS

Richard Worth

NHS hospitals may run out of money next year and be unable to pay their staff.

This is the warning from Christopher Smallwood, chair of St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in south west London. An extra £4 billion a year is needed to keep services running – double the funding gap estimated last year. Otherwise the NHS faces “widespread financial collapse.”

According to Smallwood, “since hospitals… take out loans to finance their deficits, their accumulated debt will become so large that many could run out of borrowing capacity and cash. At this point… they can no longer pay wages.”

Debt from part-privatised ‘private finance initiative’ hospitals is costing £2 billion this year – or £3,729 every minute. This would pay the wages of all qualified midwives for two and a half years! Repayments on this debt will escalate to £10 billion a year by 2017.

Underfunding

The NHS has suffered years of underfunding. Since 2010 budgets have only increased 0.8% a year, while costs have soared by up to 5%.

This shortfall has hit hospitals and patients. Yet Jeremy Hunt, the Tory health secretary, is demanding £22 billion of NHS “efficiency savings” – cuts – by 2020.

Cuts mean staff vacancies are left unfilled and staff-patient ratios worsen. With increasing workloads and less staff, hospitals are already running at full capacity. The onset of winter, however, threatens more demand.

Junior doctors have forced the government back on contract attacks just by threatening strike action. Health unions must build for escalating strikes, coordinated with other unions. This is the lead Roger Bannister would give if elected as general secretary of health and public service union Unison.

The Socialist Party says: reverse all spending cuts and end the private finance initiative. Kick out the private profit vultures, and nationalise all healthcare and pharmaceutical companies under democratic workers’ control and management.