Hospitals 'cannot afford' targets

The warning comes from major teaching hospitals

Leading hospitals have warned they do not have the resources to match "ambitious" government targets, it has emerged.

Finance directors from Britain's main teaching hospitals voiced their concerns in a leaked letter to Nigel Crisp, National Health Service (NHS) chief executive.

"The level of ambition set out for next year is beyond the resources available," they write in the letter.

It goes on: "We will not be able to deliver the key targets required... We feel obliged to alert you to our professional concerns."

The letter from Main University Hospitals Finance Directors group comes on the same day the Conservative Party unveiled its plans for the NHS.

'Financial gaps'

Health Secretary Alan Milburn dismissed the finance directors' warning as a bargaining bid ahead of the next NHS funding round.

Alan Milburn dismissed the claims

In the letter, the hospital officials say: "We are resolute in our belief that the financial gaps we are now facing cannot be closed by normal measures."

But Mr Milburn told Channel 4 News: "There is a negotiation going on and there will be noise around the negotiations."

Mr Milburn denied the criticism was either "devastating" or "unusual".

He said: "Since that letter has been written I have just put out an extra 11% on training budgets into the National Health Service, a lot of which will benefit precisely the teaching hospitals that are complaining.

'More doctors'

"It is normal at this time of year. Every year there is a negotiation between the providers on the one side, the teaching hospitals and indeed other hospitals, and those commissioning the care."

There was an extra £400m going into research and development and £140m into mainstream budgets, he said.

What we have to do... is to allow those in the front line to determine themselves what are the priorities

Liam Fox

"What people will be seeing in the National Health Service will be more expansion going on with more doctors and nurses and more beds," he added.

Shadow health secretary Liam Fox said ministers' obsession with "targets for everything and priorities for nothing" had distorted clinical priorities.

"What we actually have to do with the money available is to allow those in the front line to determine themselves what are the priorities," he said.

Earlier Dr Fox said the Tories were committed to an NHS which was free at the point of delivery.

But he also called for greater involvement from the private sector.

Dr Fox also promised patients guaranteed waiting times for hospital treatment.