NHS transformation cash was spent on crisis management, reveals spending watchdog
3 min read
A major cash boost aimed at putting the NHS on a stable footing has gone little further than crisis management, the official spending watchdog has declared.
The National Audit Office said money pumped into the health service to help it transform the way it works has “mostly been used to cope with current pressures”.
It said a £1.8bn fund last year helped hospitals and other NHS agencies clear their debts but has not led to any improvement in meeting clinical targets.
And it said desperate cash loans to hospitals from central government have worsened the financial position of trusts rather than helped them.
NAO boss Sir Amyas Morse said: "The NHS has received extra funding, but this has mostly been used to cope with current pressures and has not provided the stable platform intended from which to transform services"
“Repeated short-term funding-boosts could turn into the new normal, when the public purse may be better served by a long-term funding settlement that provides a stable platform for sustained improvements.”
In a new report the NAO said the eye-watering £1.8bn NHS deficit in 2015/16 became a £111m surplus in 2016/17 with the help of the £1.8bn ‘Sustainability and Transformation Fund’.
When the fund was announced Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it would give the NHS the time and space it needs to put transformation plans in place.
But the NAO said it has done little more than help fight fires in the face of increasing demand.
It said plugging the desperate funding gaps left scant cash left to help it make the service more efficient for the future.
Additional loans from the Department for Health shot up from £2.4bn in 2015/16 to £3.1bn in 2016/17, and more than £1bn earmarked for long-term projects was repurposed for day-to-day spending.
'PATCHING PROBLEMS'
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Meg Hillier said: “The Department of Health’s recent cash injections have been spent on patching up the problems, not preparing it for the future.”
Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth said: "Our NHS is in crisis. Years of underinvestment culminated in December 2017 being the worst month on record for A&E performance and elective operations being cancelled until the end of January.
"Targets are being missed and in-year cash injections are not improving the financial performances of Trusts."
He added: "Labour will give our NHS an extra £6 billion a year to ensure that our NHS remains a world class service for all.”
'SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS'
But a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "As this report recognises, the NHS has made significant progress towards balancing the books and returning to a financially stable position.
"To support this we recently gave it top priority in the Budget with an extra £2.8bn, on top of a planned £10bn a year increase in its budget by 2020-21."
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
