NHS hospitals take the strain

More than 1,000 amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill are testament to the scale of their climbdown. However, this respite seems set to be shattered as the National Health Service implements reforms at the same time as the impact of the deepest savings programmes ever mounted in the NHS becomes clear.

Hospitals are bearing the brunt of the efficiencies which run into hundreds of millions of pounds in Yorkshire. Already cuts have been made to the amount they are paid for their work and fewer patients are being referred for treatment.

Today the Yorkshire Post reveals the impact of a flagship target announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in his first policy statement last year, despite a pledge to drop central control from Whitehall.

It is surely right to keep a close eye on the number people returning to hospital – both to improve care and save money. But, in practice, the penalty payments exacted for each avoidable readmission are a blunt and bureaucratic tool that will only put further pressure on hard-pressed hospitals.

It is little wonder that some primary care trusts are sensibly ignoring the guidelines and are instead working with hospitals to reduce readmissions, many of which are not necessarily due to poor hospital care but because of the inadequate nature of community services and support.

Mr Lansley has at least recognised that collaboration will be needed to prop up 60 hospitals which are burdened with ruinously expensive Private Finance Initiative deals.

Despite warnings, mainly from the unions, that the contracts were unaffordable, both Labour and Tories backed a programme which was popular among construction giants and, of course, in those financial institutions that saw a chance to make gold-plated profits. These deals will need to be renegotiated to cut the mammoth costs to the public purse and hospitals. For the NHS, the calm of summer looks set to turn into a storm that could have the velocity to blow the coalition even further off course.