NHS deficit soars in 1st half year
New official figures say the deficit of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has soared to £1.6bn in the first half of this year; almost double the £930m overspend it recorded in the first three months.
According to the figures, the service’s finances sank even further into the red over the summer as hospitals had to hire extra staff to maintain quality of care and deal with both rising demand from patients and large numbers of patients who could not be discharged from hospital because of inadequate social care.
This portrays a grim picture of NHS conditions which is unprecedented in the organization’s history, the figures show.
Based on current performance, the NHS’s English trusts are predicting they will end the year £2.2bn in deficit, with 156 out of 239 of them recording deficits, Monitor said.
Over the past few months, pressures have been mounting on the Conservative government to give the NHS an emergency cash injection after many reports highlighted the extent of the £1bn overspending by hospitals last year.
The re-elected Conservative government promised earlier to provide the NHS with an extra £8bn by 2020 after demands from the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens. An additional £2bn was also given to the NHS by chancellor, George Osborne in the autumn statement.
Now experts believe that the medical costs are increasing day by day and the government is not taking any measures to cope with the trend.
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