NHS health check

2005 came to an ignominious close for the NHS with the announcement that the health service was heading for a £620m deficit for 2005-06 with numerous NHS trusts and hospitals in the red. This is not the kind of news taxpayers would have expected to hear in the sixth consecutive year of massive funding increases in the NHS budget. Indeed, it seems somewhat incongruous that despite £76bn spent on health in 2005, local trusts still found themselves in the red. Elsewhere, MRSA infections continue unabated with as many as 100,000 cases and 5,000 deaths a year according to the National Audi...