NHS reforms: Hospitals under pressure

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UK Independent:

The number of emergency operations cancelled by hospitals in England has risen by a quarter in the past seven months to almost 250. Separate statistics show a rise in the average monthly number of cancellations of routine operations for non-clinical reasons. This rate from April to December was higher than in the previous year at 40 per cent of hospitals. Nineteen trusts cancelled more operations in the nine months to December than in the whole of the previous year.

On Friday, it emerged that Imperial College Healthcare Trust, which runs several hospitals in London, is facing a £40m shortfall in its finances and a backlog of orthopaedic and trauma cases.

Growing numbers of patients are having to wait for more than four hours to be seen in casualty departments, and the proportion who still had no bed four hours after being admitted doubled between April and December.

NHS waiting lists are growing, more operations are being cancelled and treatment is being rationed in the first signs that a funding crisis is threatening care since the coalition government came to power.

In a worrying development for David Cameron as his Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, attempts radical reforms while demanding £20bn in efficiency savings, official figures suggest pressure is already mounting in hospitals.

In a party conference speech in 2006, Mr Cameron promised "no more pointless and disruptive reorganisations" and pledged: "The NHS is safe in my hands." But the Prime Minister's claim to be a defender of the NHS could be fatally undermined if the public fear a return to health service chaos seen under the Tories in the early 1990s.