fighring neto steps to pricatise care of the elderly. Meanwhile the foremment has maintained its constipated silence in response to che Outlook Unlike Frank Dobson, new Health Secretary Alan Milbur doesn't even look like Father Christmas: and health workers know to their cost that he does not come bearing gifts.
Estimates vary on the exact size of the growing mountain of cash delicas confroning Hs trust and health authondes. A recent poll by NHS financial managers conservatively estimated costs and the European working time directive - the national shortfall could be 6200 million.
This appeared suspiciously low when compared with a survey ay London Health Emergency of fewer than half of the capital':
rusts, which revealed deficits of {62m - sug resent to done is over. 100m in the red - and the revelation that one London health authority, Merton, Sutton & Wandsworth is closing wards as it struggles with a (20m deficie.
Stephen Thornton of the NHS Confedera• tion representing Trusts and health authorities guessed that the eventual figure may be as righ as (400m, while the Guardian headlined a warning of a Ll billion deficit by next April. are mounting as the NHS - with staff and services stretched to the limit - heads into the winter period which tracionally brings d peak in demand for emergency admissions.
After years of bed cuts, more beds have already begun to close through a combination of cash problems and staff shortages. When in October, hospitals in many parts of the country immediately ran out of beds to admit emergency patients.
Even the usually Millbank-friendly Guardion come up with another winter emergency package of extra cash to avert embarrassing problems in the Fis Milburn has tried to shrug off the cash crisis: but he faces a massive credibility gap not only with health workers and the wider public, but even with NHS chiefs A recent opinion poll of over 200 NHS managers for the Health Service Journaf found hat three quarters of them did not expect to get the resources, stall or training they require to deliver the growing list of govern.
The poll also revealed a dramatic contrast between their priorities as NHS managers. and what they perceived to be government priorities: for example 77% of managers thought stall shortages to be a maior issue but only 23% of them thought ministers had Perhaps the most ridiculous contrast is between the tiny handful (7%) of managers ho regard the government's much-toute VHS Direct" phone advice line as important compared with the 63% who recognise that it is a service avidly promoted by ministers at There are also signs that the interests of GPs seeking to balance the books of the newly-created Primary Care Groups can run sharply counter to those of NHS hospital Trusts, and potentially threaten their financial viability And as cash pressures mount, with PCGs some GPs are openly debating economies that would save money by prescribing secIt didn't have to be like this: the instant access to cash for the Kosova bombing campaign and rumours of a £12 billion Treasury pre-election "war chest" are a reminder that resources - to pay the health workers, stop the cuts and cut the waiting lists.
in 6 it time are leat turned up ine neat to help make them do so? Home news/ Scotland -We d SAVE LORENCE HAMMONA (ет. ELDERIY Privatiration is not just a threat hanging over the London tube and air traffic control. Birmingham campaigners are among those Royal Commission on long term care of the elderly, rohich recommended an end to means-tested charges for nursing care. To SAVE Guestholme HOmE OuR EP»