After three years of limits had brought mount- tor, ing chaos to the NHS, Gordon Brown even- Lol. tually relented in his March 2000 budget, and came for- Health ward with substantial new David money. NHS spending as a share of Britain's GDP is set to rise by almost 2 percent by 2004 - a £13 billion a year de increase on 1999.
But this boost to spending was delayed ong that much of the new money in for the first year has been swal- Private lowed up in covering debts and bailing out the NHS value across the current winter period. gering Many health authorities are already looking to stand still or cut services next year, and even those with more than enough money are struggling lion. to find staff they can recruit PRI to enable services to expand.
This is a useful reminder that even the extra cash, belatedly paid out, is by no means a guarantee of New Labour's commitment to a while public sector health service. NHS Instead, the controversial assets. NHS Plan drawn up during the by Health Secretary Alan Milburn showed Blair's Labour government eagerly shovelling billions from the NHS into the coffers of the private secwhile morale among health workers hits rock botLabour backbenchers and Committee chair Hinchcliff have become increasingly uneasy controversial over the way the extra NHS with the cash is being spent, and the facto privatisation of buildings and areas of care.
A new raft of 16 hospital building schemes to be paid the Tories' Finance Initiative (PFI) will push the total of hospitals to be rented by the NHS to a stag- vate hospitals are.)
€3.9 billion, with more still to come. Milburn has already invited bids for 18 more new hospital pro jects, worth another £2.3 bildeals lumber local NHS Trusts with an obliga• Even tion to pay hefty rents and Thatcherite service charges - guarantee- squeezed ing profits to the private sector - for the next 30 years, liquidating existing jogging land and properly and This bonanza for private sector profiteers follows hard on the heels of Milburn's Set Worker Andrew Wiarc Dudley strikers: out seven beds times since August that of NHS (TOL
STOP PFI TAX THE RICH