THE BARTS group of hospitals, due to opt out as a Trust next April, is the latest unit in inner London to report a catastrophic financial deficit, topping €12 million.
Management admit that every department will be hit by cuts as wards and services shut down alter barts toss contract to treat almost 4,000 patients.
Like nearby B.oomsbury and toch unit over comin CH unit (over €20m in the red), Barts is a casualty of the Tories' internal market sys. tem London's teaching hospitals at a huge price disadvantage in he cut-throat competition for patients.
Cut-price treatment Health authorities on the edge or outside the capital are taking the opportunity to save money by sending patients elsewhere, to hospitals where The cumulative shortfall in now in excess of £60 million, and rising with each fresh announcement. With 70 percent of NHS spending allocated to pay, these massive deficits pose a huge threat to health workers, with simultaneous cuts and closures hitting almost every health authority Natural wastage ' is unlikely to procuce the scale of 1ob cuts needed, while many of the serand bed closures will have a brutal effect on Londoners waiting for treatment at their local hospitals. Waiting lists will grow, and thousands will be forced to travel further for treatment.
the government's determinationto lack back the number of hospital beds in the capital received a welcome boost from a major report drawn up in June by a King's Fund Commission The poorly-researched and contentious proposals to axe at least 14 hospitals and 5,000 beds in the capital delighted Virginia Bottomley, and will alarm Londoners.
Bottomley will be relieved that the Tories' own inquiry into London's NHS, under Professor Sir Bernard Tomlinson, can now appear relatively moderate in comparison, even while proposing drastic cuts in beds and services.