NEWS
NHS spending fell in real terms by £800m in the Coalition’s first year in office, breaking a key Conserv- ative pledge before the election, Labour has said.
Treasury figures suggest that spending on the NHS in 2010/11 was £101.9bn, down from £102.7bn in 2009/10, Labour’s last year in government.
Shadow health secretary John
Healey said: “David Cameron has broken his NHS pledge. He put up posters pledging to cut the defi- cit, not the NHS, but we see now that the Tory-led government has already cut spending on the NHS in its first year.”
Chancellor George Osborne retort- ed that Labour were “attacking their own NHS spending plans” because he had simply stuck to the figures from the final year of Labour’s 2007
spending review. He said health spending would increase from April 2011, not from the moment the Co- alition came to office.
He said: “Under Labour spending plans, NHS spending fell, under this government’s spending plans it is projected to rise – people can draw their own conclusions about who they trust on the NHS.”
Rowena Crawford, of the inde-
pendent Institute for Fiscal Stud- ies, said: “In reality whether the NHS gets plus 0.0% or minus 0.0% growth in a year makes very little real difference. While one ‘breaks the pledge’ and the other doesn’t, the NHS still essentially faces a real freeze in its budget which it will find very constrain- ing given increases in demand for healthcare and the large real in- creases in spending it has enjoyed for the past decade or so.”
NHS workers have attacked the increase in public sector pension contributions next year as a pure ‘tax’ on NHS staff to boost Treas- ury coffers, rejecting the argument that the large increases are about boosting pension funds.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, BMA chair- man of council, said: “This isn’t about making the NHS pension sustainable in the long term – it already is. This is simply a tax on public sector workers. The NHS scheme is already affordable, yet the government is asking doctors to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds more for a worse deal on retirement.
Masses more NHS data to go online
More NHS data will be open to the general public, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has an- nounced.
The Government pledged a “quantum leap in transparency” as it detailed the new information on the NHS, education and the justice system that will be pub- lished.
Among the new ‘open data’ that the NHS must publish is com- plaints categorised by hospital and GPs’ prescribing practices.
Maude said: “The new commit- ments represent a quantum leap in government transparency and will radically help to drive better public services.”
8 | national health executive Jul/Aug 11
A leading GP has criticised David Cameron for what he called a “ri- diculous” and “extraordinary” slur on the profession.
The Prime Minister, in a speech on public services reform, said: “Peo- ple with money can get friendly with their local GP at a dinner party, may- be see them out of hours if there’s an emergency. In this world of re- stricted choice and freedom it’s the poorest who lose out.”
But Dr Laurence Buckman, chair- man of the BMA GPs’ Committee, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “We’re mystified by his claim and would like to know what evidence he has to back up his extraordinary statement.
It’s not a situation I recognise, and
pointed out, the scheme’s costs are already set to continue to de- crease well into the future.
“Moreover, we thoroughly disap- prove of the way the government is conducting this exercise, which is no way to treat dedicated public sector workers, or to achieve sen- sible agreement. We would en- courage all NHS staff to respond to this consultation.”
“The NHS pension is currently delivering a massive surplus to the Treasury. It underwent ma- jor reform only three years ago, which saw doctors’ contributions increase significantly. As the Pub- lic Accounts Committee recently
Contributions are set to increase again in 2013/14 and 2014/15.
NHS Staff Side, which represents health unions, said the proposals are not legitimate.
In a statement, it said: “We have not and still do not accept the Treasury’s rationale for imposed contribution increases which have been devised to counteract the ef- fects of the financial crisis caused by reckless risk taking in the bank- ing sector.
“The contention that these con- tributions are necessary to pay for increased longevity is false; this cost pressure is identified in the cost sharing agreement un- der which NHS employees (not taxpayers) would stand to pick up the cost of living longer. In essence this is simply a tax on hard working and loyal health service workers.”
most GPs would view it as a ridicu- lous comment which has no bearing on reality for GPs or their patients.”
A Downing Street spokesman said Mr Cameron had not intended to criticise GPs, but added: “At the
moment, the only people who tend to get a bit extra are those with the deepest pockets or sharpest el- bows.”
NHE received many letters on this subject – see page 15
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