Save our NHS

Hospital services along the East London Line could be slashed as hospitals struggle to manage massive debts .

An analysis published in the Financial Times on Saturday, pinpointed PFI debts of a staggering 16 per cent of income at The London Hospital and South London Healthcare trust.

The FT article spelled out a future in which accident and emergency and all other ‘blue light’ services such as maternity care could be cut at a swathe of local hospitals including: the Homerton, and Croydon and Lewisham hospital trusts.

The debts were incurred under the Labour Government when hospitals were encouraged to borrow money from the private sector in order to fund much –needed building and modernization projects. Now the hospitals are having to pay back their debts from a much reduced income as the Government squeezes NHS income.

Nick Bailey from Keep Our NHS Public said today: “The whole development of the past few years has been to make the NHS organisationally function like a market and a business and this means, like any capitalist enterprise, the possibiliy of failure. Foundation Trusts were part of this. The danger of the PFI s was always that it would saddle hospitals and other NHS facilities with enormous debts. The public only saw a nice new hospital wing or whatever, but were kept in the dark about the real financial implications.”

The cuts  – and the inevitable increase in the flow of patients to the larger, centers – are seen as the only way of ensuring a growing income to the specialist hospitals.  Only with an increase in business can the cash-strapped NHS flagship hospitals survive in the new, business oriented NHS, that the Government wants to see.

Dr Ron Singer, President of the Medical Practitioners Union-Unite told ELL: “It is inevitable that, by making every hospital stand alone as a business, there will be mergers and closures. The only surprise is that this is happening so quickly. “Once the Bill gets through things will get worse.   The government are looking for a 20-25 per cent saving on the health budget and this has to come from down-sizing.

Singer fears that the issue of GP fund-holding has been used as: “An irrelevant Trojan horse,” to distract the public from the far bigger problem of  privatization of the hospitals and other care services.

“A market in health care will encourage some services to ‘exit’ from the NHS and allow new people to come in to fill the gaps.  Monitor is the body that will enforce change.

“The Health Care Bill sets out that the Secretary of State will no longer have a duty to provide comprehensive services – only to provide appropriate services. “