Wednesday, January 10, 2007

NHS trust debt prompts cutbacks

North Yorkshire's health care bosses have approved cost-cutting measures to clear a £45m debt.

The North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust is the most overspent organisation in the NHS.

At a meeting in Harrogate on Tuesday managers decided on plans to cut debts within the next three months.

They agreed to measures including some hospitals refusing to treat "trivial" cases in casualty, and delaying some patients' non-urgent operations.

"It's inevitable that these proposals will cause some concern and unhappiness, what we are doing is looking to slow down some areas of activity, and in a small minority of cases, some patients will wait longer for their treatment or surgery."

Cases reviewed

 some patients waiting for non-urgent procedures such as the placement of ear grommets could find their cases being reviewed.

"It depends on the urgency of the case and the view of the GP or referring clinician and certainly the primary care trust is going to put in place an exceptions panel to consider all patient cases based on the individual details for that patient."

 THIS IS HAPPENING HERE IN CAMBRIDGESHIRE, THE PCT IS HEAVILY IN DEBT AND THERE IS NO CLEAR WATER AHEAD WITH THE CURRENT SPENDING PLANS UNLESS YOU AND I THE "CUSTOMER" LOSE OUT ON TREATMENT, MUCH OF IT ESSENTIAL, I MYSELF HAVE BEEN REFUSED TREATMENT RECENTLY BY A TICK OFF PROCESS, AFTER REVISITING MY G.P I HAVE BEEN RE REFERRED DUE TO THE SEVERITY OF MY CASE.........................