"£20bn NHS savings spark care quality fears"

From The Evening Standard:

Quality of care for patients could suffer as the NHS struggles to make £20 billion in efficiency savings, health experts have said.

Two-fifths of NHS finance directors expect patient care to worsen over the coming years, according to a survey. Almost two-thirds think that the NHS as a whole will struggle to achieve the £20 billion "productivity challenge" by 2015, according to The King's Fund research...

So the NHS is supposed to "save" £20 billion over the next three or four years, and when they say "save" what they mean is "spend less than in an alternative scenario where they spend more" (a bit like your wife "saving" £100 off a pair of shoes she didn't need, or indeed your husband "saving" £100 off some whizz bang electronic gadget which he didn't need either).

According to the excellent www.ukpublicspending.co.uk site, NHS spending more than doubled (from £55 billion a year to £120 billion a year) between 2001 and 2010, from which stage spending is expected to flatten off (or only rise gradually).

So a £20 billion saving over 4 years is actually only £5 billion a year, which is like reversing the NHS clock by about six or nine months, surely this is not a thing of impossibility? And if they want a quick win, they can just tear up the PFI contracts on the basis that they were entered into under false pretences, that the awarder of those contracts was acting ultra vires etc etc. Or simply introduce a new Schedule G, and charge tax on profits therefrom at 100% with no deduction for expenses.