NHS in £200m cash mystery

Oct 23 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

FOR many people, the logic behind the way the NHS spends the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that is lavished on it remains a mystery.

And that mystery will be deepened by the story we carry today, which reveals the NHS in the North West failed to spend almost £200m last year, even though hospitals in Merseyside are making cuts and patients are being denied treatment.

While the Audit Commission praises NHS Northwest for its strong financial position, critics say it has come at the expense of hospital beds and potentially life-saving treatment.

The figures come just two weeks after the Daily Post revealed that more than 70 people were denied potentially life- enhancing or even life-saving drug treatments because special panels at Primary Care Trusts had refused to pay for them. When deciding whether or not to fund the treatment, the PCT panels examine potential benefit against cost.

On the one hand, no-one can deny that it is better for the NHS locally to be in a strong financial position rather than a weak one, with all the implications that has for patients and staff.

And yet, on the other, it will come as a bitter pill to swallow for those patients who are being denied treatment on the basis of cost.

New figures also show the Strategic Health Authority expects the "unspent" figure to rise to more than £200m by the end of this financial year, more than any other region in the country.

While these figures may well cause whoops of glee from the accountants, , the reaction from patients is likely to be very different.

Time and again, whenever they have been consulted, patients say they want to see the NHS billions being spent on front-line services, not on more bureaucrats.

It is now up to the NHS locally to bring some clarity to its finances, and to explain why it has such a huge surplus while patients are still being denied treatment.