"Hilarious Hewitt"

So according to the slightly less than 'Hilarious Hewitt' the NHS will balance its books this year and should show a slight surplus.

But again as usual looking a little closer it is the usual lies, deception and creative accounting that is the face of this corrupt government and its leader Tony Blair.

Basically money has been held back centrally and training stopped or curtailed. In addition to this some NHS regions and trusts have just stopped doing work for the last weeks of the year to stop them running up larger deficits.

All this is doing is giving an appearance that the books are balanced, whilst in reality problems are being stored up for later. This is typical of the disintegrating government that we must now suffer.

As Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, said:

"Labour are able to claim that the NHS will finish this year in surplus, but the surplus they have generated is a sham.

"There are more NHS organisations, saddled with worse deficits, than there were last year.

"Patricia Hewitt's skin is being saved only by savage cuts to centrally-held budgets, which will all need to be restored in the years to come."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Norman Lamb added.

"A lot of trusts were being forced to take very tough measures to get their finances back on track.

"The impact on patient care around the country could be very damaging."

More reading on this here.


Many NHS trusts face growing debt