Proposals threaten Children’s hospital with massive funding cut
Article published: Thursday, November 4th 2010
Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital could lose up to a third of its funding as part of a nationwide cut to children’s hospitals, Department of Health proposals have revealed.
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The proposals seek to massively cut the extra ‘top-up’ funding children’s hospitals receive in recognition of the extra resources paediatric care needs compared to adult care. This amounts to 78% more than the normal rate paid to other hospitals for the same procedures.
Under the proposals this would be slashed by two-thirds to just 25%, meaning an overall cut of 30% for operations and procedures in some hospitals.
In a statement the Department of Health underlined that the cuts are still in the planning stages, adding that: “Any reduction in the tariff income received by specialist trusts should be also be seen in context – less than ten hospitals are likely to be affected significantly by these changes and the tariff is not their only source of income.”
However critics claim that it is unlikely such cuts could not impact upon services. Chief Executive of the Children’s Hospital Mike Deegan warned: “The impact of this, if it comes about would be extremely serious in terms of the effect on clinical services. There is no doubt that services would be affected – there would have to be a major review of what is provided.”
Martin Rathfelder of the Socialist Health Alliance, an organisation which promotes health and well-being through collective action, told MULE: “Childrens hospital services are more expensive to run than services for adults. They are rightly concentrated into a few specialist sites, because the clinical skills needed to care for severely ill children are in short supply. There also needs to be some reserve capacity to deal with epidemic illness.
“If there is a substantial cut in funding it is hard to see where economies could be made other than by closing wards.”
When contacted by MULE, a spokesperson for the hospitals said that they were “not able to answer any specific questions at this time as these are just proposals – nothing has been decided yet.”
Trade union UNISON, which represents workers and healthcare professionals in the hospital, was unavailable for comment.
The news comes as the government comes under increasing fire by those who say NHS cuts will affect frontline services.
While Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley has reiterated on several occasions that management and bureaucracy will be the primary targets for efficiency savings, medical journal The Lancet has criticised the disparity between these promises and the situation on the ground – with some authorities already planning cuts to frontline services to meet savings targets.
A report by the NHS Confederation added weight to this claim by warning that the scale of savings will not be covered simply by cutting management and acute sector costs, whilst an academic from Manchester Business School cast doubt on whether the structural reorganisation of the NHS would make any savings at all.
Writing in the British Medical Journal in July Professor Kieran Walshe said: “The transitional costs of large scale NHS reorganisations are huge, although they are often discounted or ignored, and the intended or projected savings from abolishing or downsizing organisations are rarely realised”. He added that he estimated the proposed reorganisation would cost £2bn – £3bn to implement.
Michael Pooler
More: Manchester, News
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