HEALTHCARE FOR ALL

Our investigation, carried out across all 42 Integrated Care Systems in England, found that nearly all are making decisions to restrict spending by a collective total of around £8bn. Unsurprisingly, their primary focus for savings is their most significant area of expenditure: their workforce. Nearly all of the lead decision-making...

ICB WATCH – data collection October 2024 An investigation by The Lowdown of all 42 Integrated Care Systems in England has found that nearly all are making decisions to restrict spending by a collective total of around £8bn. Unsurprisingly, their primary focus for savings is their most significant area of...

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November 2024 Birmingham and Solihull Birmingham & Solihull has submitted a plan to break even in 2024/25 on the basis of delivering £220m of efficiencies. (p213) But for the first two months of the year, the system was £32.3m deficit, £23.4m adrift of the plan, with significant overspends on both...

As winter approaches, with the days growing shorter, the warnings from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine are growing more frequent and anxious. Responding to the Labour government’s first Budget Dr Ian Higginson, Vice President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “We commend the government’s ambition to start...

This is Part 1 of the latest Lowdown overview of the financial state of the NHS, drawing on ICB and trust board papers and other sources. Most of the work was done in the second half of October. Since this draft was completed, the Health Service Journal has published a...

When The Lowdown first started in early 2019, the backlog maintenance bill for England’s NHS was estimated at £6 billion. By 2021, it had risen to £9 billion. In 2022, it reached £10.2bn. But with the Tory government’s infamous policy of ‘austerity’ in full swing and restricting capital spending in the NHS up to...

It’s another autumn, and the private healthcare sector is again attempting to convince journalists and the public that it is booming. The publicists for the private hospitals are keen to take the stigma out of wealthy people paying up to jump lengthy NHS queues for elective treatment: David Hare, who runs the Independent...

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust have outraged trade unions and campaigners by outsourcing parts of their finance department in the desperate effort to cut spending. The Trust faces a £104m deficit as the inadequate NHS budget has come under pressure. In total, 84 staff, many of whom have been loyal employees for up...

Comment by Irwin Nash The Health Service Journal has reported that “A hospital chief executive (of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT)) has apologised after being filmed telling staff his trust had already decided to outsource its facilities management services”. It is unclear how this apology went...

More than 20 radiographers, radiology assistants and associated support staff, members of the GMB employed by Frimley Health have opted to suspend action following their 100% ballot vote to strike. They are fighting Trust plans to outsource the contract for MRI services at the new £25m Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC)...

The views of Irwin Nash on the government’s recently launched NHS consultation Many campaigners will react with despair and disappointment to Wes Streeting’s “consultation” on the future of our NHS. The shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, who studiously avoided any engagement with campaigners or health unions before the election, is unlikely...