This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
‘Bloody stupid' to expect £4bn NHS funding
Jim Mackey, the outgoing chief of NHS Improvement, has claimed that NHS leaders were ‘bloody stupid’ to expect £4 billion of government investment in last month’s Budget.
The former head of the financial regulator said that the ‘negativity’ surrounding the recent £1.6 billion settlement, announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond, would have angered government ministers, indicating divisions among health leaders in both the health service and the government.
NHS England and other leading NHS organisations were quick to suggest that the £1.6 billion investment was too little and insufficient to combat the immediate pressures facing hospitals this winter.
Speaking to the Health Service Journal, Mackay said: “We’ve got an investment that none of us think would be enough, and none of us should have thought we’d get enough because that would just be frankly bloody stupid, but we’ve got a serious investment and we’ve got to get the best out of it.
“The new money ... can’t mean we deliver all of the standards and balance the books and invest in mental health and primary care and cancer and all those things – it’s not enough to do all that.”
NHS Improvement has recently placed King’s College Healthcare NHS Trust in ‘special measures’ over fears that its projected deficit for this year has ballooned from £38 million to £92 million.
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