LIVERPOOL UNGAGGED: HENSHAW ON THE TELLY AGAIN!

SIR DAVID HENSHAW HAS BAGS OF CASH BUT WON'T LET THE NHS SPEND IT!!!!

LOCAL NEWS PRESENTER FOR BBC 1 GORDON BURNS HAS JUST INTERVIEWED SIR DAVID HENSHAW , HE ASKED HIM ABOUT THE ARTICLE BELOW.

Henshaw has insisted that giving the nurses and care staff in Hospitals pay rise of just 2.5% is none of his concern.

He insists that the money put aside that constitutes the underspend is for emergency purposes!

WHAT THE HELL IS AN EMERGENCY IN HIS BOOKS?

The health service is in a mess and putting much needed money aside for so called emergencies just proves that there is money to give our medical professionals a living wage rise, it also shows the contempt that Sir David Henshaw has for the workers he is responsible for.

Yet another area that Henshaw has started already to destroy.

I fear for our national health service with him in charge!

This feeling is backed up by a number of high ranked members of parliament including Junior Minister Jane Kennedy MP for Wavertree Liverpool, who resigned her post as she felt so strongly that Henshaw was the wrong man for the job.

GIVE US THE MONEY HENSHAW! Or are you going to fleece the health service like you fleeced Knowsley and Liverpool?

NHS ' is heading for underspend'

The NHS looks like it has underspent by nearly £500m last year after making cuts amid intense political pressure to avoid a deficit, early data shows.

Unions suggested the NHS had gone too far in making cuts and harmed care. But the government said any surplus would be re-invested.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has staked her job on the NHS balancing.

Figures compiled by the Guardian newspaper revealed the under spend was estimated to be £456.8m in England.

The Guardian analysed data from England's 10 strategic health authorities, regional NHS bodies which oversee hospitals and local NHS trusts.

If these figures are right, we know that some trusts must have unnecessarily cut back on services to patients
Dr Sam Everington, of the British Medical Association

They showed that only two regions failed to balance its books - the east of England and the south-east coast. The north west on its own ran up a £161m surplus.

The figures include the £450m contingency fund - built up over the year by making cuts to training and public health budgets - which was redistributed to NHS trusts in March.

But the data shows a large increase on the three-quarter year point, when the NHS was predicting a small £13m surplus.

It is unclear how such a big surplus has been amassed in the final three months of 2006-7. There have been reports of trusts imposing minimum waits for operations in a bid to avoid paying for treatment until the new financial year.

The NHS had also not had the full £5.4bn increase in its budget passed on for 2006-7. Some of this went to pay off last year's debt of over £500m, but it that still left several hundred million pounds left over.

The Department of Health is due to publish the final figures next week.

'Impacted adversely'

But Dr Sam Everington, acting chairman of the British Medical Association, said: "If these figures are right, we know that some trusts must have unnecessarily cut back on services to patients such as reducing operating lists and clinics, closing wards, cutting education and training budgets, and making staff redundant.

"All of these things will have impacted adversely on patient care."

Other unions also questioned the fairness of staggering a 2.5% pay award for nurses and other health workers when there was so much money left in the system.

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the final figures would be published shortly.

But she added: "The NHS ended last year [2005-6] with a deficit of over £500m.

"This was unacceptable, and we introduced new rigour and discipline in order to put the NHS on a sound financial footing for the future."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/health/6700663.stm