NHS Improvement has reported that NHS Trusts have 100,000 vacancies and are more than £1.2 billion in debt.
According to the quarterly performance report, despite record numbers of A&E attendances, NHS providers have maintained A&E performance but demand pressures have significantly impacted finances.
Performance against the four-hour A&E standard was 89.5% at the end of December, similar to performance for the same period last year which was 89.6%.
At the end of December, NHS providers in England reported a year-to-date deficit of £1.28 bn, £365 million worse than the £916 m planned deficit. A deficit of £761 m was recorded for the previous year. Rising demand and high levels of bed occupancy were cited as having affected providers’ ability to admit patients who require planned care. Bed occupancy has been affected by delays in transfers of care to other settings, including social care. NHS England’s unprecedented cancellation of an estimated 50,000 planned operations this winter, also meant hospitals missed out on more than £100 m of income as a result.
Ian Dalton, chief executive of NHS Improvement, said: “NHS staff have yet again delivered their best for patients in the face of rising demand. More people than ever before are going to emergency departments up and down the country at a time when providers are already having to tighten their belts. I would like to say my heartfelt thanks to NHS staff for their continued hard work and recognise that there is more hard work ahead.
“Some providers appear to have managed the financial pressures better than others. We are working closely with those providers whose financial position has deteriorated seriously to ensure that they grip their problems while delivering the best possible care for their patients.
“It would be unrealistic to assume the demand which has been building for a number of years is going to reverse. Local health systems need to work together to plan for capacity in future years that can meet the increasing levels of demand that we will continue to see.”
However, Richard Murray, director of policy for The King’s Fund, warned: “It is alarming that NHS providers now forecast a £931 m deficit for this financial year, a deterioration of over £300 m in three months. This reflects the dramatic decline in the finances of a number of individual trusts, and raises serious questions about how reasonable the financial targets were in the first place.
“While NHS Improvement is right to point to increases in demand for services as the reason for the financial difficulties, these are not pressures that have sprung up in the last few months and show no sign of abating. Although the Treasury has provided more money to the Department of Health and Social Care, these pressures raise the risk it will breach its own budget.
“This underlines yet again that after the biggest funding squeeze in NHS history, the service does not have enough money or staff to do everything being asked of it.”
