Britain's health service faces funding crisis

By Kate Kelland
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is facing the biggest financial and organizational challenge in its 60-year history, with a 15 billion pound ($24.6 billion) shortfall looming after 2011, a report said on Wednesday.
A report by the NHS Confederation, which represents health service managers, said recession and rising costs will squeeze the NHS budget by 15 billion pounds in the five years from 2011.
The two years leading up to 2011 would be "tough but manageable," it said.
"In just under two years, the NHS will face the most severe constriction ever in its finances," it said. "Action is required now if the service is to remain true to its founding principles and continue to provide care free at the point of delivery."
The Confederation said funding shortages could lead to "across the board cuts," longer patient waiting lists for treatment, falling standards and staff and patient dissatisfaction.
"With little or no cash increase from 2011/12 the NHS has to prepare itself for real terms reductions in what it can afford to do and needs to make the hard decisions about which programs to fund, how to reward staff and how to reorganize services now," NHS Confederation chief executive Steve Barnett said in a statement accompanying the report.
The NHS was launched 1948 as a health service promising to be free at the point of need. It has grown in more than 6 decades to become Europe's largest employer, with more than 1.5 million staff across Britain. It deals with eight patients every second.
According to the government's Department of Health, the NHS budget for 2009/10 is almost 103 billion pounds, a 7.5 percent real-term increase on the previous year.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham said the Labor Party, in power since 1997, had always been committed to spending on the NHS and would continue to back it.
"We've always looked after the NHS," he told BBC television. "Funding has just about trebled from where it was. We've gone from a position when we had long waiting lists in the NHS to today, where waiting lists for operations are practically eliminated.
"This is massive improvement in our health service. That's our record, and I think people can have some confidence that we will carry on look after it."
Nigel Edwards, author of the report, said there was scope in the system to make savings, but it would not be easy.
"The principles of the NHS still enjoy huge public support but if they are going to remain the same, a great deal will have to change and in doing this there is the opportunity to make the service better as a result," he said.
(Editing by Luke Baker)

Source: Reuters