This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
NHS has a 'substantial financial problem', says former head
Nicholson, who retired last April, was in charge of the NHS for eight years and said the current situation is worse than the one he inherited in 2006, and is a cause of 'great concern'. He said that that despite the current political climate and pre-election campaigning, there should be no discussions on expanding the service, when there should instead be discussions on how to address the 'financial hole'.
Nicholson said: "They want to talk about extra services and extra investment when actually there is a problem there to face. It will mean the politicians having to suspend some of their ambitions about the new things they want to do while some of the money that's being promised to the NHS is spent dealing with that particular operational problem."
In relation to the five-year plan for the NHS, presented by Nicholson's successor Simon Stevens, the former Chief Executive said the savings proposed by the plan was a 'very tough ask', and that savings would be better made through 'changing the way we deliver services', or else face a 'managed decline'.
Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Health Foundation, said: "NHS finances can only be described as dire at the moment, three quarters of our hospitals can't balance their books and at the turn of the year they were running a deficit of £900m. The outlook in the medium term is also really challenging, [the NHS] needs extra funding each and every year".
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