Reprieve for Local NHS

11.54.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 23rd Apr 2007

The Borough's Primary Care Trust has received an unexpected windfall of £1.5 million from the Government for the year 2006/7, just finished, which helped it to offset a local deficit caused by an earlier raid on its funds to help cover deficits elsewhere in London. But the pressures continue. The Government is still threatening to take away ('top slice') £5.6m (2.5% of its budget) in the current financial year to help cover deficits elsewhere in London.

Vincent Cable MP, who visited the Chair and Chief Executive of the NHS Primary Care Trust today (Monday) to discuss the issue, said: "It is obviously good news that financial pressures are being eased. But this is just a temporary sticking plaster solution. Instead of allowing a meaningful exercise of local control, and letting the local borough manage its own affairs, with the council working alongside the NHS, there is tight central control - via the London region - turning on and off the financial tap. Obviously it is right that London's overall health economy is sorted out. But there is a danger that by pushing cuts off the NHS as part of national cost savings onto local social service departments will undermine local services."