England’s mental and community health services face deeper cuts than hospitals

Providers of community and mental health services in England have complained of unfair treatment after new rules were published imposing stricter financial terms on them in 2014-15 than for acute care trusts.

NHS England and the sector regulator Monitor, which are now jointly responsible for setting the tariff under which providers in England are paid, have spared acute trusts from deeper cuts because, they argued, hospitals faced an additional £150m (€180m; $250m) of costs to meet the recommendations of reports by Robert Francis QC and Bruce Keogh, the NHS’s medical director, which do not apply to non-acute trusts.

In their report on the national tariff payment system for 2014-15, NHS England and Monitor explained that the NHS as a whole had to make savings …