Government will not bail out trusts in difficulty, minister says

NHS trusts in financial trouble will no longer be bailed out by the government, the health secretary, John Reid, told the parliamentary select committee on health last week.

Mr Reid said that “deficits would lie where they occur,” unlike in previous times. “In the past we would take money from elsewhere, but that just means that somewhere else a patient has to wait longer in pain.”

During the House of Commons Health Committee's inquiry into annual public expenditure he said that the way …