News story

4th November 2004

Local MP Warns of Cash Threat to Bristol Hospitals
 

Northavon MP Steve Webb has warned in the House of Commons this week that a major shake-up in NHS funding which will start next year could have a devastating effect on local hospitals. Under new funding rules which are to be phased in over a three year period starting in April 2005, hospitals will get a fixed amount of money for each procedure (eg operation) that they undertake, regardless of how much money it has actually cost them to do the procedure.

Higher cost Trusts, such as North Bristol NHS Trust, could eventually find that they lose money on each procedure they undertake and will have to find savings elsewhere. These new "tariff funding" rules will add to the financial pressure on the North Bristol NHS Trust which is already going through a financial "recovery" programme having run up deficits totalling more than 44 million pounds in recent years.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, local MP Steve Webb highlighted the particular problems that local hospitals could face. He asked the health minister, John Hutton, "to pay particular attention to Trusts that are in financial recovery, lest he wreck the very financial recovery that they are trying to achieve". In his reply, the Minister explained that estimates of the effect of the change on each NHS Trust would be completed by December, but that he would "certainly" pay particular attention to Trusts in financial recovery.

Commenting after the exchange, Steve Webb said:

"Whilst I fully understand the need to keep costs down in the NHS, the last thing that Frenchay and Southmead need at the moment is another financial squeeze. The Government should ease off on the introduction of these new rules until the financial position of our local hospitals are back on an even keel".

Click here to read the exchange in the House of Commons