One in three NHS Trusts head into the red for the first time since General Election

Labour today accused the Government of losing control of NHS finances as reports indicate one in three Trusts will be in deficit this year for the first time since the General Election.

Rebecca Blake, Labour's Parliamentary Candidate says "Our own local Trust, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust has recorded £14.2 million deficit for the last financial year and predicted a deficit again for this year.  The Government pledged not to cut the NHS yet since 2010 the NHS has had real term government funding cuts".

A new analysis published by Labour shows that:

·         More than one in three acute Trusts (58) are currently in deficit for 2013-14 – compared to just one in ten (16) at the time of the last General Election.

·         There has been a marked worsening of NHS finances in the last year.

·         Two thirds of hospitals that have gone into the red since the election (27 out of 42) have done so in the last financial year.

The figures, obtained from Monitor, the Trust Development Authority and the House of Commons Library, show NHS finances have gone backwards in every English region since the General Election. The worst deterioration has been in the East of England, London, the East Midlands and the West Midlands.

Rebecca said "While we're all campaigning against cuts to services, the government, supported by the Redditch MP pushed through legislation that allows closure of hospitals in deficit. I'm concerned that starving our hospitals of funding will result in hospital closures.  This could pull the rug from under the Alex and all of the work that has been done to try and retain services at our local hospital".

Labour’s analysis comes as reports suggest Ministers are putting emergency money into an unprecedented summer crisis in A&E and to tackle the growing backlog of operations.

Labour has said “David Cameron promised that he would protect the NHS. Instead, his disastrous reorganisation has thrown the NHS into chaos.

“Patient care is going backwards as more people are forced to wait longer in A&E, cancelled operations are at their highest for a decade and waits for vital cancer tests and treatments are increasing too.

“We now know that the Government has also lost grip of the NHS’s finances. A third of hospitals are reporting deficits, putting patient care at even greater risk in future. The fact that Ministers are having to put more money in to tackle a summer crisis in A&E and the growing backlog of operations shows how desperate the situation now is.

“Forcing through a £3 billion back-room reorganisation when the NHS faces the biggest financial challenge of its life was David Cameron’s single biggest mistake on the NHS, and it is patients who are suffering as a result.”