Commenting on quarterly NHS trust finance figures from NHS Improvement, our Chief Economist John Appleby said:
"Today’s figures (note 1) provide further evidence of how tough it will be for NHS trusts to balance their books. As we showed in new research published yesterday (note 2), hospitals ended last year even deeper in the red than reported, and the gap this year is wider still.
"Health service staff have worked hard to deliver more than £400m in recurrent savings in the first three months of this financial year. Spend on agency staffing is showing significant improvement. But they face an uphill struggle.
"Unfortunately, the rising costs hospitals are being asked to absorb will eat up all the benefits of improved efficiencies. This will leave them yet again with a significant underlying deficit at the end of this financial year."
Notes to editors
- You can find full NHS Improvement report here: Quarterly performance of the NHS provider sector: quarter 1 2017/18
- The bottom line: Understanding the NHS deficit and why it won’t go away is by Sally Gainsbury and reveals the true underlying state of NHS hospital finances. It was published on 31st August 2017. Read the press release here.