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| NHS financial crisis: Target rules relaxed | NHS financial crisis: Target rules relaxed |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A host of hospitals in England have been told they do not need to meet key waiting-time targets this year, to help ease their financial problems. | A host of hospitals in England have been told they do not need to meet key waiting-time targets this year, to help ease their financial problems. |
| The move is part of a package of measures taken by NHS bosses after hospitals exceeded their budgets by a record amount last year. | The move is part of a package of measures taken by NHS bosses after hospitals exceeded their budgets by a record amount last year. |
| Fines for missing targets for accident and emergency units, cancer and routine operations have been scrapped. | Fines for missing targets for accident and emergency units, cancer and routine operations have been scrapped. |
| And a new failure regime is being set up for the worst-performing trusts. | And a new failure regime is being set up for the worst-performing trusts. |
| It will see regulators parachute senior managers into the hospitals to help devise plans to get them out of trouble. | It will see regulators parachute senior managers into the hospitals to help devise plans to get them out of trouble. |
| Five trusts - Barts Health in London, Croydon Health Services, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, Norfolk and Norwich Hospitals and North Bristol - have been placed into the new regime immediately, with another 13 threatened with the prospect. | Five trusts - Barts Health in London, Croydon Health Services, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, Norfolk and Norwich Hospitals and North Bristol - have been placed into the new regime immediately, with another 13 threatened with the prospect. |
| Health budget rise 'less than promised' | |
| Care 'could suffer' as NHS busts budget | |
| Is enough being spent on the NHS? | |
| But the relaxation of the rules over waiting times is the most radical element of the announcement made by bosses at the three national bodies that oversee the health service - NHS England and the regulators NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission. | But the relaxation of the rules over waiting times is the most radical element of the announcement made by bosses at the three national bodies that oversee the health service - NHS England and the regulators NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission. |
| Hospitals have been struggling to hit their targets for some time and will now no longer be fined for missing the four-hour A&E target, the 62-day target to get cancer treatment and the 18-week goal for routine operations, such as hip and knee replacements. | |
| Instead, they will have to simply improve on their current performance to get their slice of the extra money being invested in the NHS this year. | Instead, they will have to simply improve on their current performance to get their slice of the extra money being invested in the NHS this year. |
| Each hospital has been given its own target for improvement, and crucially for a number, particularly in regards to A&E, it allows them to get the funding without achieving the official targets. | |
| Health bosses believe the measures will help the NHS get the deficit down to £250m this year after an overspend of £2.45bn was posted in 2015-16, the highest ever recorded and triple what it was the previous year. | |
| That figure also covered the budgets for mental health units and ambulances, but it was the hospital sector that ran into the most difficulties with nearly nine in 10 ending the year in the red. | |
| NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said this was a make-or-break period. | |
| "Precisely because the pressures across the NHS are real and growing, we need to use this year both to stabilise finances and kick-start the wider changes everyone can see are needed." | |
| Meanwhile, it has emerged the financial problems in hospitals almost meant the Department of Health failed to balance its budget overall, which could have meant sanctions from the Treasury. | |
| The department managed to cover the overspend by trusts by drawing on surpluses elsewhere in the health service, which meant it finished £210m in surplus on a budget of nearly £115bn. | |
| But this only came after it raided the capital budget, which is set aside for buildings and maintenance, by £950m. | |
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