25.02.11
Warning over bleak future for many hospitals
Hospitals face a difficult future, according to the chief executive of the NHS – and many face closure if they cannot adapt in time.
Sir David Nicholson told the BBC that the different financial circumstances of 0.1% rises above inflation until 2015, after ten boom years of constantly-increasing real terms funding, meant hospitals would have to “seriously look at the way they operate”.
He said: “It is a difficult settlement for the NHS, no doubt about it.
“Most hospitals will be able to survive and thrive in the new world. But undoubtedly there will be those that will find it difficult.”
He added: “The thing about the hospital service is that it has grown enormously over the last ten years in particular and we are going into a period where growth in the NHS is what they describe as 'flat real'.”
The TUC has calculated that 50,000 NHS posts could go as trusts seek to make efficiencies, but the Department of Health said all the money saved would be reinvested in the health service.
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