Welfare Reform on the Web (November 1999): National Health Service - Funding

CONSULTANTS HIT OUT AT THREAT OF PFI BED LOSS

K McIntosh

Health Service Journal, vol. 109, Sept. 2nd 1999, p. 8

Consultants at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust have condemned private finance initiative plans that will mean the loss of 250 acute beds as purely financially motivated and designed to tackle a £4.3 million deficit.

COUNTRY STRIFE

C White, P Halton and R Flowerdew

Health Service Journal, vol. 109, August 12th 1999, p. 20-21

Paper argues that funding mechanisms in the NHS need to take more account of rurality when allocating resources. Rurality is considered when allocating funds to other public services such as the police and education. Country areas have more, and smaller, hospitals than cities, and this involves extra costs.

EXAMINING VALUE FOR MONEY DEALS UNDER THE PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE

National Audit Office

London: TSO, 1999

Report focuses on the four pillars which support the aim of getting a good deal in a PFI project. These are:

• set clear objectives;
• manage PFI procurement as a project in its own right;
• select the best available;
• keep checking that the deal makes sense.

(For comment see Health Service Journal, vol. 109, August 19th 1999, p. 2-3)

FIELD DAY

S Ward

Health Service Journal, vol. 109, Sept. 16th 1999, p. 24-25

Reports on how funding formulas are being reviewed nationwide to take account of extra costs of delivering health care in rural areas across the UK.

MAKING AN ISSUE OF IT

S Ward

Health Service Journal, vol. 109, August 26th 1999, p. 14-15

Reports that a PFI hospital in Cleveland is to be financed almost entirely by the issue of bonds to investors by the private consortium.

THE MERIT AWARDS GAME

M McHale

Public Finance, Sept. 3rd - 9th 1999, p. 16-18

Performance pay is set to pervade the public sector despite arguments that it is divisive and unfair. One of the most graphic examples of the pitfalls of performance-related pay remains the surgeons' long-standing merit award system. which even the Labour government is trying to reform.