BMJ  2006;332 (1 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7544.0-f

Editor's choice

Time to leave home

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

These are bad times for the NHS. The words "crisis" and "meltdown" are flying around and few people say these are exaggerations. While the health secretary Patricia Hewitt maintains an impressive Thatcheresque public facade, her department is believed to be in panic. Record spending has delivered record deficits and uncertain value for money. For the first time in anyone's memory, sizeable numbers of NHS staff are losing their jobs (News, p 743). How has this happened and what's to be done?

Last week's edition of the BBC's Panorama roundly blamed the government. It concluded that ministers had gravely miscalculated the cost of their reforms, especially the doctors' pay awards. Interviewed on the programme, John Appleby, senior economist at the King's Fund, agreed. The Department of Health must take the blame, he said, because it sets both the NHS's cost environment (most notably the doctors' pay increases) and its targets.

. . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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