Trust deficits will be wiped out by end of next financial year, NHS chief predicts

The English NHS’s chief executive, David Nicholson, this week predicted that all deficits of NHS trusts would be wiped out by the end of the next financial year.

Speaking at the Public Accounts Committee hearing into the NHS’s financial performance in 2006-7, Mr Nicholson said that the number of failing trusts in England had been cut from more than 100 to 25 in this financial year (2007-8) and would be eliminated altogether next year.

At the same time the Department of Health predicts that the health service will record an overall surplus of £1.8bn (€2.4bn; …