Difficult Times Ahead For The NHS Thanks To Darling's Budget

Chancellor Alistair Darling promises some big changes in his budget speech, a budget that would deal with borrowing and secure a road to economic recovery. It usually takes critics a few days to pick out the hidden costs we all failed to miss in the budget but this time by the end of his speech the nation was already fairly unconvinced. Ultimately we were all left perplexed as to how the government planned to achieve spending cuts of 38bn a year.

Bearing in mind the huge promises it was a budget that was astonishingly underwhelming. These are times when the nation needs help more than ever and especially with a general election not far off, this budget does not provide the reliability Labour needs to prove if they want to stay in power for the next five years.

Although much of Darling's proposal consisted of vague tax adjustments but the majority of the budget seems to come from an increase in efficiency and spending cuts. A total of 4.3bn worth of cuts each year has been dropped on the NHS with orders to make huge savings and improve efficiency.

4.3bn may seem like a tall order, and it is, but its nothing compared to the 20bn that NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson says is required the NHS through the years ahead. Nicholson claims that spending cuts are not the answer and improving productivity would be fundamental to their success before considering drastic action.

The department of health outlined a number of key areas to make savings including lowering the prices of goods and services bought by the NHS, saving up to 1.5bn. Tackling staff sickness absence could save over 500m, making use of land and buildings more efficient would save 70m and reducing energy usage could save up to 60m. They also aimed at improving productivity in staff by 3.5bn, 2.7bn from improved patient care, 1.5bn from reducing unnecessary prescriptions and 2bn in management savings.

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