Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Hospital debt, Lord Birt, DfT Select Committee on the London Underground.
Hospital Debt
Asked about the Times splash about the Health service, and what sort of service was it if the Government was "pouring billions" into individual funds that were still going overdraw, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) that people should put the story into perspective. The figures represented a tiny fraction of the NHS budget, and spending in the NHS had increased this year by £6 billion. The money was speeding up services, reducing waiting times, and providing more staff. The PMS said the reason some trusts were predicting a deficit at this stage was because some of them had crammed twelve months work into the first ten months of the financial year. Therefore, far from being a story about financial crisis, it was actually showing the NHS working and providing a good service to patients.
Put to her that surely if they were cramming work into the ten months, someone had to pay for the extra two months, the PMS said at the end of the day, trusts that overspend would have to make up the difference. What the PMS was reminding people, however, was that this was a small percentage - 0.7% - of the overall NHS Budget of this year.
Put to her that it was lot of money for those individual trusts, the PMS explained again that some of that money was because they had done twelve months work in ten months.
Asked whether people should be "mystified" that there was an extra £6 billion being spent, and yet wards were still being closed, the PMS said the trusts were providing more operations, facilities and better services for patients. That all cost money. There was a lot more money going into the NHS and there was a lot of work going on. We were continuing to put resources into the NHS the deal with the problems that were being described.
Lord Birt
Asked if it was correct the Prime Minister had commissioned work from Lord Birt about the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, the PMS said the story was completely without foundation, and was completely wrong.
Asked what work Lord Birt did do, the PMS said we never went into details about the work Lord Birt did. One Strategy Unit report he had been involved in had been published on their website. We had always explained he was an unpaid, part-time adviser to the Prime Minister who had looked into a number of different issues.
Asked where the PMS thought the stories were coming from, the PMS said she did not know.
Asked if there was a review being conducted into the Cabinet Office by someone else, the PMS said again that there was no foundation to the story.
DfT Select Committee/Tube
Asked what the Prime Minster’s view was on the Transport Select Committee’s report criticising the Tube, the PMS said the DfT had set out their views yesterday. We were into the first three years of a thirty-year contract, and there was a lot of work going on. We expected the current improvements on the Tube to continue, and we expected more improvements to take place over the coming years.
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