Hull MP slams £98 per head Coalition cuts planned for Hull's NHS

Hull North MP Diana Johnson has slammed the Coalition Government's plans to cut NHS funding in Hull and switch the money to wealthier areas.

 

Next Tuesday (17 December), NHS England will decide how much money Clinical Commissioning Groups will receive to fund healthcare for their population. This money is used to pay for emergency and elective hospital care as well as, for example, mental health services, community nursing and NHS Walk-in Centres.

 

 

Although this Tory-led Government would like to say that they have nothing to do with these proposals, these changes are the result of Andrew Lansley's 2010 decision to reduce the weighting given to health inequalities in the funding formula from 15% to 10%. Lib Dems in the Coalition backed these changes.

 

 

The current proposed changes will break the rule that sees the most deprived communities with the greatest health inequalities getting the money they need. What's worse, the cash will be handed to parts of the country where healthy life expectancy is already the longest.

 

 

Under the plans, Hull would lose £28.4m - 8.9% of its funding. This is a cut of £98 for every man, woman and child in Hull. Meanwhile, the wealthier Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead area gains £106 for every person.

 

 

Diana Johnson MP said: "It is utterly wrong for Lib Dems and Tories in the Government to devise a new funding formula that takes £98 in NHS funding from every person in Hull to give it to more affluent, healthier areas.

 

 

"Ministers argue that funding is being switched to places with more elderly people. However, there are larger numbers of old people in these richer areas largely because wealthier people tend to live longer! Now, thanks to the Lib Dems and Tories, they will gain NHS money taken away from the most deprived areas, even though places like Hull are suffering far more from poor health and the cost of living crisis.

 

 

"This raid of £28.4m from Hull's NHS 8.9% of NHS Hull's entire budget - follows Hull recently being refused any extra Winter A&E crisis funding by the Coalition. It also mirrors similar unfair treatment of Hull over local government funding cuts.

 

 

"These plans would see a serious squeeze on a range of Hull's NHS services, at a time when our hospitals have already had the huge costs of the Coalition's wasteful NHS reorganisation. This is further proof that you can't trust David Cameron with our NHS and that Hull isn't getting a fair deal on funding from this Coalition."