Sally Gainsbury
HSJ's finance reporter
Recent activity
Blog Posts (13)
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In response to relatively popular demand
Why does it matter if GPs can earn interest from their “hard cash”?
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Bed pans and dangerous dogs
Loose talk on FT and SoS freedoms
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Lansley’s devil is in his detail
It’s a policy: real terms cuts to NHS pay
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Common denominator politics
So was that just the Conservative Party’s Bank of England moment?
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Fear not: Tories are more afraid of you than you of them
Perhaps now is a good time to start asking what the Tories would do to the health service…
Sally Gainsbury contributes to:
Comments (5)
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Comment on: Pre-Budget report removes £500m in health capital spending
Anonymous: Implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards is requiring PCTs to impair some of their capital assets as they are brought onto their balance sheets. The DH has said these impairments will be funded but the funds as yet have not been issued, causing concern. Our original story incorrectly referred to “capital funding” for these impairments and that has now been changed. The effective reclassification of LIFT and PFI spending as “capital” rather than “revenue” means the size of future schemes will be affected by the size of the NHS’s capital expenditure limit.
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Comment on: Tory plan could give GPs interest bonanza
Why it matters if GPs can earn interest on their commissioning budgets: http://www.hsj.co.uk/in-response-to-relatively-popular-demand/5007743.blog
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Comment on: Bed pans and dangerous dogs
Nigel Edwards, NHS Confederation policy director comments: "The principle that the Secretary of State should have the power to ask Monitor to review the status of a FT or that Monitor should have the power to deauthorise FTs in some special circumstances does not appear to be particularly contentious. What is of concern is that this proposal seems to be largely unnecessary and whilst it is claimed it is in response to the problems of Mid Staffs these were solved without recourse to anything like this. Since then the CQC has acquired the power to close failing services and take other action which would almost certainly trigger the need for Monitor to act. The speed of the response required, the tone of the document and the statements made about the new powers will create a concern in the NHS is that this is a symbolic first step to reclaiming freedoms and independence bestowed on Foundation Trusts and that the promises of a new settlement will be eroded as they were in the years following 1990. It also has significant potential to undermine the principle of independent regulation and lead the Secretary of State open to pressure to intervene with the definition of exceptional getting more loose with time - precisely what the creation of Foundation status was supposed to prevent."
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Comment on: NHS trusts owed millions by private patients
The story is not misleading. It does not report on the amount trusts have set aside as provisions for bad debts nor does it report on debts referred to collection agencies. It is rather based on the total of overdue private patient invoices trusts reported through responses to FOI requests. Trusts were asked to break down all their overdue debts from one month late up to five years late. A number only gave details of those more than three months late. The information is often not in the public domain as overdue private patient debts are often lumped together with NHS debts.
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Comment on: Real terms cuts of 2.3% a year from 2011 onwards?
I don’t know what comes under the “non-department spending” category, but I wonder if it includes senior House of Commons staff. A fresh deposit in the Commons library listed 125 posts which are paid over £63,291. That’s at least £7.9m, before we’ve even started counting MP pay and expenses. Democracy doesn’t come cheap I suppose. http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2009/DEP2009-1184.doc
