DoH returns £1.5bn after under-spending

 
22 August 2013
WEST END FINAL

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The Department of Health is to hand back more than £1.5 billion to Chancellor George Osborne after failing to spend all of its budget.

The money, originally meant for the NHS, will be used by the Treasury to cut its overall costs. The department’s annual accounts reveal a £2.132 billion underspend in 2012/13. Of this, £1.5 billion was unused by the now-disbanded strategic health authorities and primary care trusts, £106 million by NHS hospitals and £510 million by self-governing foundation hospitals.

After overspending on last year’s £1 billion reserve, the total DoH underspend was £1,527 million — 1.4 per cent of the NHS’s £105 billion budget. Dr Richard Vautrey of the British Med- ical Council’s GP committee said the hand-back undermined the Government’s vow to increase NHS funding.

200 dentists are earning in excess of £300,000 by topping up their NHS contracts with private work. This was four times the average for dentists who perform only NHS work, said the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

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