This article has been ignored by the British press during the
election campaign; it was published on the RT website but it’s a Reuters
article.
The two main health service unions have commissioned a study
into what the NHS pays hospitals for the operations they carry out (that’s
where most of their income comes from).
When the Tories tell us how well off the NHS is – well this
tells a different story; hidden cuts that hurt:
Stealth
cuts of £2 billion cripple NHS - report — RT UK
Stealth cuts of £2 billion cripple NHS -
report
April 26, 2015
Reuters /
Toby Melville
Hospitals
in England are being hit by “stealth cuts” of more than £2 billion
($3.03
billion) since 2010 according to new research, blaming the cuts for
"rapidly
deteriorating" hospitals’ finances.
Tariffs –
hospital price payments per procedure, fixed by the National Health
Service
(NHS) – have been massively reduced in the past five years according to
research
carried out by the False Economy think tank, which was commissioned by the TUC
and Unison. And those tariffs are where two-thirds of English hospitals' income
comes from, the study adds.
The
research found that one of four elective procedures, such as treatment for blood
poisoning or diabetes, have had their tariffs slashed by more than 40 percent
since 2010.
By
examining 138 NHS procedures, the researchers found that between 2010 and 2015
hospitals suffered an income loss amounting to £70 million ($106).
Some
treatments suffered cuts of 85 percent, including leukemia, asthma and sickle
cell anemia, while cash for conditions like tuberculosis and glaucoma had been
reduced by more than 70 percent and conditions like septicemia and kidney stones
have had the amount given to them reduced by more than half.
When
applied across all 4,500 tariffs, which make up most of the funding given to
hospitals, the cuts amounted to more than £2 billion ($3.03 billion) over five
years, making a mockery of the government’s claim that funding for the NHS has
been ring fenced.
“These
stealth cuts may have been largely hidden from the public eye, but the effects
are grave. The NHS is in a rapidly deteriorating financial position, with
hospital finances in steep decline,” said Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary,
in a statement.
Dr. Mark
Porter, the head of the British Medical Association, said that the reductions
in tariffs are part of a wider problem of cost cutting in the NHS.
“Cutting
hospital tariffs causes real hardship for NHS services which are already
struggling under rising patient demand, especially from an ageing population.
This will push NHS organizations further into deficit, making a mockery of
claims to have protected the NHS from cuts,” he told the Independent.
However,
the NHS insisted that funding is going up rather than down.
“Rather
than being cut, hospital funding in England has gone up, rising over the past
three years from £49 billion to over £56 billion, a real terms increase of 9
percent,” said an NHS spokesman in a statement.
A spokesman
for the Conservatives also insisted that hospitals had seen an increase in
their budgets.
“Getting
efficiency from the tariff is an important part of driving better value for
taxpayers from the NHS, which is why it has been the policy of successive governments.
Hospitals have seen real-terms increases in their budgets this Parliament, and
unlike Ed Miliband, we’re committing to the £8 billion the NHS says it needs to
transform community care,” he said.
However,
NHS providers, like organizations providing mental health and ambulance services,
are opposed to the cuts in tariffs.
“It is now
widely accepted that 2015/16 will be the most difficult financial year for the
NHS in its recent history,” they warned in January, according to the
Independent.
I suppose the greatest scandal in all this is the 85%
reduction in rates for the treatment of Sickle cell anaemia, which is a disease
specific to African and afro-Caribbean people and has never been properly
addressed in this country.
You only have to work for the NHS or be a patient to know
that the Tory figures don’t add up.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.co.uk
