Shock figures released by the NHS Confederation have shown that the NHS budget for 2010/11 will be increased by £4.1 billion – just two thirds of the total foreign aid spend by the British government for 2009.

According to the NHS Confederation, the health service will face “the most severe constriction ever in its finances” within two years. In a document called ‘Dealing with the Downturn’ the NHS Confederation – which represents all the constituent organisations making up the NHS – warns that this cash shortage will “translate into fewer staff” and a lowered number of services.

According to the NHS Confederation, the budget allocation for the NHS in 2009/10 is £98.2 billion. This is set to increase to £102.3 billion in 2010/11 – or 68 percent of the £6.02 billion spent on foreign aid this year.

The NHS Confederation paper paints a bleak picture of the financial pressures and the impact that this will have on the nation’s health service. In the five years from 2011 the paper forecasts that the impact of the recession, allied to rising costs, means it is likely the NHS will face a real terms shortfall of £15 billion.

“The NHS will face a real terms reduction of £8-10 billion in the three years from 2011 and the decline could continue beyond this,” the paper said.

With little or no cash increase, from 2011/12 the NHS will need to plan for real terms funding to fall by 2.5 to 3 percent per annum, the paper continued.

“It is unavoidable that this will also translate into fewer staff. The savings needed to deal with this will need to be realisable as cash and so the level of savings required may need to be very much larger.

“This is a serious situation. In previous expenditure squeezes, most which have been less severe and were less protracted than this one will be, questions were raised about the sustainability of the NHS model and the capacity of NHS management to deal with the challenge.

“The question is whether this impending crisis and the 22 months we have to prepare is a sufficient spur to extract very major efficiencies from the system and take some brave decisions to reshape services,” it said.

According to Professor Alan Maynard, professor of health economics, University of York and Chair, York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the government might be forced to cut public sector wages in the face of the cash shortfall.

“Thus all state employees could have their pay cut by say 5 percent,” he said. Writing in an article in the online journal onmedica, Professor Maynard said, “Once the election is over, reductions in NHS funding will require profound changes in clinical and managerial practice if the patient is to be protected. Sadly the NHS labour force seems relatively unaware of the abyss facing it and the patients it cares for.”

The obvious answer is simply to put British interests first. The British National Party is the only party committed to not handing out a penny in foreign aid or any other form of foreign subsidy until all shortfalls in services to British people have been made good.