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Hospitals facing funding crunch
TOP bosses at hospitals across Camden have sounded alarm bells over cuts to NHS funding caused by the credit crunch.
David Sloman, chief executive of the Whittington Hospital in Archway, has warned that NHS funding cuts because of the economic downturn are “inevitable” and has predicted “significant amounts of income will be lost over the next two years”.
He said “uncertainty in the local healthcare system” had forced the hospital to abandon its long-held ambition to become an independently run foundation trust.
Mr Sloman added: “More challenging is the wider economic situation and the inevitable impact on the public sector finances and the local and national NHS. These are challenges that will be faced by all Trusts across north London, including the existing foundation trusts.”
In the same week, University College London Hospital chief executive Sir Robert Naylor warned his board of “very serious financial challenges facing all healthcare providers in London”.
The flagship Private Finance Initiative hospital is struggling to borrow cash to build its £100million specialist cancer centre. Plans for the new centre are at an advanced stage, but finance chiefs have admitted that its capacity to borrow funds in the current climate have been severely weakened. A report to the board last month revealed that borrowing would have to be “minimised”.
The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead is also facing a “loss of income”. It has been told it will lose its £4.9million from its
annual Research and Development grant until 2011.
It has had to delay its application for foundation trust status as a result of more than £10million losses incurred following the installation of a new computer system in the hospital. |
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