Hospitals are making ‘unthinkable’ cuts to services including diabetes and mental health clinics in a bid to meet the ‘eye-watering’ savings demanded by NHS bosses, a new report has revealed.
In March, the health service’s new chief executive Sir Jim Mackey ordered NHS trusts to make unprecedented cuts to avoid a projected £6.6bn deficit becoming a reality.
Now, a damning report from NHS Providers has found rehabilitation centres, talking therapies and beds for end-of-life care are also at risk or are being scaled back to comply with the ‘financial reset’.
Almost half of all trust bosses surveyed admitted they were having to scale back services, with more than a third also slashing clinical posts.
One, shockingly, said their trust had to cut 600 clinical roles like doctors and nurses along with a further 1,000 office jobs to reduce costs.
Earlier this year, the NHS was promised an extra £11 billion for two years, but much of it has been swallowed up by the 22 per cent salary increase for junior doctors—now known as resident doctors—health leaders said.
They also warned the ‘eye-wateringly high levels’ of savings required would prove ‘extremely challenging’ and inevitably affect patients and waiting times.
It comes as Sir Jim yesterday also slammed the ‘unacceptable’ care patients have received from the NHS—particularly for the elderly—which has become ‘normalised’.
A damning report from NHS Providers has found rehabilitation centres, talking therapies services and even beds for end-of-life care are also at risk or are being scaled back to comply with the ‘financial reset’
In March, the health service’s new chief executive Sir Jim Mackey (pictured) ordered NHS trusts to make unprecedented cuts to avoid a projected £6.6bn deficit becoming a reality
Interim chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: ‘The NHS has just undergone a significant financial reset in response to a deficit that ran across the health and care system of between £6 billon and £7 billion.
‘There was clearly a pressing need to tackle what was becoming a spiralling deficit—an understandable deficit.
‘Things like the resident doctors’ pay award took a significant chunk of money out of the allocation to frontline services.
‘We also know that inflation put significant pressure on trust budgets, and there were many, many unfunded demands on trusts.
‘But let’s also be clear, cuts have consequences.
‘NHS trusts face competing priorities of improving services for patients and boosting performance, while trying to balance the books with ever-tighter budgets. National leaders must appreciate that makes a hard job even harder.’
The survey, carried out last month, gathered the responses from 160 NHS chief executives, chairmen and other board executive directors.
These cover 114 trusts in England and account for 56 per cent of the sector.
Some 47 per cent revealed they were scaling back services, with a further 43 per cent considering this option.
Earlier this year, the NHS was promised an extra £11 billion for two years, but much of it has been swallowed up by the 22 per cent salary increase for junior doctors—now known as resident doctors—health leaders said. Pictured, the doctors striking in June 2024
Almost 4.3 million people were living with diabetes in 2021/22, according to the latest figures for the UK. And another 850,000 people have diabetes and are completely unaware of it, which is worrying because untreated type 2 diabetes can lead to complications including heart disease and strokes. Around 400,000 are believed to have type 1
More than one in four (26 per cent) said they will need to close some services.
These included diabetes clinics, rehabilitation services, virtual wards, stop-smoking services and talking therapies.
A boss of a mental health trust also told the BBC they had had to stop accepting referrals for adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), while waits for psychological therapies exceeded a year.
The chronic condition diabetes now affects 4.6 million people in the UK — a record high, according to the charity Diabetes UK.
It can be a deadly illness and it costs the NHS roughly £10 billion a year to treat, with patients at higher risk of damage to organs, nerves and cells.
Last year, concerning new figures also showed the number of children referred for specialist anxiety treatment has doubled in just four years.
More than 200,000 children in England — or 4,000 every week — were waiting to begin treatment in the past year.
Over a third (37 per cent) of survey respondents also said their organisation is also cutting clinical posts as they try to balance their books, with a further 40 per cent considering this.
A 2022 joint survey of 1,130 teachers conducted by the children’s mental health charity Place2Be and the National Association of Head Teachers also found an increase in emotional and mental health issues among pupils since the pandemic
Meanwhile, 86 per cent of trust leaders said they were cutting posts in non-clinical teams—such as HR, finance, estates, digital and communications—after being told to halve corporate cost growth.
Several trusts said they were aiming for reductions of 500 or more jobs.
It comes after NHS bosses were hauled into an urgent meeting in March with Sir Jim, after it was revealed there was a £6.6 billion gap between hospitals’ financial plans for 2025-26 and the actual budget.
Speaking at an event for the Medical Journalists Association in London yesterday, he also said the service faces ‘big choices’ to ‘tackle variation’ and ‘improve service standards’.
He slammed ‘unacceptable’ care the NHS had provided—particularly for the elderly—which he acknowledged has become ‘normalised’.
Sir Jim also expressed concerns over staff being ‘desensitised’ to poor care, such as elderly people facing long waits on trolleys in A&E departments.
On spending he added: ‘The NHS is such a big part of public spending now we are pretty much maxed out on what’s affordable.
‘It is really now about delivering better value for money, getting more change, getting back to reasonable productivity levels, but in a way that’s human and is about standards and about quality.’
In the Providers survey, however, 45 per cent of leaders said they were moderately or extremely concerned the actions they were taking to make savings will compromise patient experience.
Some 61 per cent said patient experience is most at risk of being impacted by the changes, while 57 per cent thought access to timely care would take a hit.
Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘This is NHS leaders themselves coming clean about the perilous state of the NHS.
‘Reducing clinical jobs and patient services is different from any argument on NHS waste and efficiency—patient needs go unmet, hospitals become overcrowded and waiting lists grow.
‘Cutting nurse jobs costs lives and Wes Streeting will need to decide if this is acceptable on his watch.’
Responding to the survey, a Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: ‘We invested an extra £26 billion to fix the broken health and care system we inherited, and through our plan for change are determined to tackle inefficiencies and drive up productivity in the NHS.
‘We have underlined the need for trusts to cut bureaucracy to invest even further in the front line, so we can support hard-working staff and deliver a better service for patients and taxpayers’ money.’
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