Bedford Borough Cllr Roger Rigby has hit out at local NHS chiefs for withholding funding from Bedford Hospital.
Hospitals in England, including Bedford Hospital, are subject to a range of locally and nationally set financial penalties for not meeting targets. These penalties include instances where a hospital is not necessarily at fault such as when there is higher than expected emergency admissions or activity for a certain service as well as when service delivery is poor.
When a financial penalty is incurred by Bedford Hospital, local healthcare organisers in the Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (BCCG) will have the option to fine the Hospital or work with it to use the potential fine to correct a service pressure.
In a meeting of Bedford Borough Council’s Adult Services and Health Committee Cllr Rigby expressed his desire for the BCCG to do more to work with Bedford Hospital to tackle high demand and reduce potential financial penalties. He said:
‘Here we have this frankly ludicrous situation in which Bedford Hospital is losing funding even in instances when it is at not at fault. Penalties make hospitals rightly concentrate on getting the service level right for patients but the first priority should be to work with hospitals to put right the service and not look to the fine as a way of funding other non-hospital services that the BCCG is responsible for.
‘While I accept that investing in community services can relieve the pressure on the Hospital, it should not be through fines from money that is taken away from the Hospital.
‘It is within the gift of the BCCG to waive the financial penalties when it would be in the best interests of patients. The Hospital should know where it stands in terms of its funding allocation. This robbing Peter to pay Paul actually adds to the Hospital’s deficit unfairly.’