20.06.12
£19m deficit in NHS North Yorkshire and York
North Yorkshire is facing “radical” cuts and a complete shake-up of services to manage a huge deficit whilst attempting to identify efficiency savings of £22m in the next year. The announcement comes as a senior economist warns that NHS efficiency savings may be unachievable.
NHS North Yorkshire and York has a £19m budget deficit and has long been receiving financial support from its local SHA, the county’s NHS chief executive Christopher Long said. Fewer hospital stays and more care in the community is being planned in response to the financial challenge.
According to the BBC, Long said: “Traditionally we received a bung [from the SHA] to bail out our bottom line, we always received additional money, so our accounts show a surplus. We have received £100m over six or so years from Strategic Health Authority. We will not be receiving that funding so the deficit will show on our accounts.
“Unless we can deal with the deficit we will start following year with £19m less than this year and next year it could well be a £38m problem.
“We need to look at how services are configured and delivered. We need to invest in community services for people with long-term conditions and also ensure the frail and elderly stay well.”
Writing at bmj.com, The King’s Fund chief economist John Appleby suggested that total savings of £50bn may be required by 2019-20, extending the efficiency challenge of £20bn by 2015.
He wrote: “On a historical assessment the task looks frankly undoable. Has the NHS merely set itself up for failure on this challenge? If the productivity policy goal is already just this side of credible, stretching it another four years surely must have crossed the line.
“To be inefficient is not just to waste money, it's to waste lives. So, there should be no let-up in finding new and better ways of using finite budgets to do good things for people who use the NHS. But maybe it's time for some realism.”
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