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HIV services in UK face unprecedented cuts
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GAY.COM
Wednesday 22 March, 2006 11:50
London HIV clinics may be forced to make unprecedented cuts in services, facing the prospect of having to run away new patients unless they can make drastic savings elsewhere, GAY.COM has learned.
Faced with an NHS plunging into deficit, London HIV clinics have been told that they will be given no more money to pay for HIV treatments and care in the financial year starting in April, other than 4% to account for inflation.
This is despite that fact that patient numbers are forecast to rise by 11% next year.
Unless new patients turned away from clinics or savings are found elsewhere, the consortium that pays for HIV treatment out of a pool of money from London's NHS Primary Care Trusts will have to find L7 million from already cash-strapped hospitals.
The cuts, which are far worse than expected, come a month after NHS chiefs 'topsliced' 3% off the budget of every primary care trust in Greater London in order to pay for the spiralling debts of some of them.
NHS trusts in London are between them L300 million in the red, accounting for at least a third of an NHS deficit estimated as L750-900 million - 1% of its budget. Chief Executive Sir Nigel Crisp resigned on 7 March, denying it was because the NHS could not balance its books despite massive cash injections from the Treasury,
In London, the overall deficit conceals gross inequalities.
A BBC investigation found that Kensington and Chelsea PCT is L20 million in deficit and Hillingdon PCT L25 million, while at St George' s Hospital in Tooting, south London, which is L12.5 millions down, there were rumours that the hospital had seriously considered stopping treating new HIV patients earlier this year.
In contrast the two largest HIV clinics in London owe nothing: the Royal Free Hospital has broken even after being L10 million on the red last year while the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is L1.2 million in surplus.
PCTs that have worked hard to make savings, like City and Hackney, stand to lose jobs. Health unions in Hackney reacted furiously to the news, accusing the Department of Health of "blind panic".
"The 3% topslice came as of a shock to us at to anyone," one PCT manager told GAY.COM.
"It' s an order of magnitude more than we were expecting," added an HIV consultant.
GAY.COM has learned that even controversial treatment decisions that had already been considered by the London consortium, such as putting all possible patients on to Kivexa (abacavir/3TC) in place of the more expensive Truvada (tenofovir/FTC) would only save about L4 million of the L7 million needed to fund new treatments.
HIV is not the only specialist condition to be hit. Haemophilia services have been told to make drastic cutbacks.
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