All-party public accounts committee of MPs reports financial mismanagement and lack of control over NHS billions

MPs expose lack of control over NHS billions

Extract:

"A devastating insight into financial mismanagement at all levels of the NHS - from Government ministers down to hospital bureaucrats - is provided by a committee of MPs today.

The report by the all-party public accounts committee exposes how billions of pounds of taxpayers' money is being poured into a health system with inadequate financial controls and low levels of accounting expertise.

The MPs conclude that NHS structures are so inadequate that the Department of Health has no idea what the effect of last year's total deficit of £570 million is having on patient care.

The deficit was recorded despite a massive rise in NHS spending from £69.7 billion in 2004-5 to £76.4 billion in 2005-6. In this financial year the amount being pumped in will soar again to £92.6 billion.

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee, said "weak control of finances" and "lack of interest" by doctors in the sums they were spending were to blame for many of the deficit problems.

In no less than one in three NHS organisations, auditors had raised concerns "about the financial management capabilities of general management".

In one in four they were worried about the financial performance of non-executive directors.

The committee said that while the Department of Health had no "overall picture" of the effect of deficits on services to patients, it was clear they were adversely affecting the level and quality of care."