Hospitals cash in after axing staff

Aug 31 2007 By Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Mail

HOSPITALS and health trusts in the West Midlands are set to end the financial year with a £135 million surplus in their budgets, after axing hundreds of jobs.

For years hospitals fell millions of pounds into debt.

But new financial forecasts published by the Department of Health yesterday showed that every health trust except for Coventry is expected to end the current financial year within budget.

A total of £135 million is now set to go unspent in the region, including £4.5 million at the trust which runs City Hospital in Birmingham.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, insisted yesterday that budget surpluses were a sign of good financial management.

But Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "If there is taxpayers' money laying idle, let us put it to good use by investing it in frontline staff and getting newly-qualified nurses into work."

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, which runs University Hospital in Warwickshire, is the only trust in the region which is overspending.

It is set to go £10 million over budget this financial year, and has announced plans to axe 200 managerial and administrative posts, in order to save money.

Mr Johnson said: "We have to stay within budgets. This means we have got a surplus of 1.3 per cent of the total budget, which is just about where it should be. We can spend that money on additional services."

Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell said the budget surplus was due to job cuts.