Treasury will take “incredibly dim view” of £2.3bn NHS overspend

Overspending in the NHS is growing so much that the Department of Health risks not being able to find the funds to cover it this year and may breach its expenditure limit, a quarterly monitoring report by the King’s Fund warns.1

NHS provider overspending reached £1.6bn in the second quarter and was forecast to reach £2.2bn by the end of this financial year,2 but NHS England wants it contained at £1.8bn.3 The King’s Fund’s latest regular survey of finance directors suggested that achieving this is highly unlikely.

Two thirds (67%) of the finance directors expect their organisations to overspend by the end of this year, including 89% of acute trusts. For the first time the finance directors were asked to predict …