Cash Releasing Efficiency Savings

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Conference
2009 Health Care Service Group Conference
Date
9 December 2008
Decision
Carried as Amended

This conference recognises that Labour has significantly increased funding for the NHS over the period it has been in power.

We are extremely concerned, however, that the practice of forcing Trusts to make year on year “efficiency” savings of 3% is having a destabilising and damaging effect on many staff and the services they run. For many NHS service providers this can mean millions of pounds being taken from already hard pressed budgets.

We criticised this practice under the Tories and our response should be no different now. This will now become more significant than ever given the substantial savings Trusts will be expected to make due to the current financial crisis.

We therefore call on the Health Group Executive to raise this issue with the Department of Health and the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as a matter of urgency and ask that this method of clawing money back be stopped.