3:57pm Thursday 18th March 2010
By Rebecca Lowe
NHS Enfield will end the year with the third biggest deficit of all London trusts, it has emerged.
The primary care trust (PCT) has forecast it will need to find £10.5 million to drag itself back into the black by the end of this month.
It is one of six London health trusts with deficits, ranging from £4.2m to £37.7m.
The trusts affected are South London Healthcare NHS Trust (£37.7m), Barking, Havering and Redbridge acute trust (£19.7m), North West London Hospitals (£8.2m), West Middlesex acute trust (£5.2m) and Sutton and Merton PCT (£4.2m).
The London Assembly’s health and public services committee has expressed concern about the figures, which total £85.4 million.
London trusts were only £72.6 million in deficit at the end of 2008/09, though Enfield has reduced its debt from £26m.
Overall, however, NHS London believes it will end this financial year in surplus.
Assembly member James Cleverly, chairman of the health and public services committee, said: “NHS London has told us it is going to be even tougher in future years, so it is very worrying that six of the capital’s PCTs and acute trusts are in the red already.
“We are concerned about the size of these deficits and the impact they could have on the services Londoners receive.
"Questions must be asked about whether the underlying problems that caused the deficit have been addressed.”
With a current deficit of £17.5m, NHS Enfield recently came top in a joint Guardian/Civitas study of 100 PCT budget deficits in England.
A spokeswoman said the trust had reduced the debt through a programme that focused on efficiency savings "without compromising quality of services or patient safety".
Darren Cattell, interim director of finance, added: “Our priority is to ensure we commission high quality services for patients.
"Many of the projects involve investing in new services that deliver more care in the community, which should also deliver improvements in local NHS services.”
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