Warning NHS making same mistakes that led to Mid Staffs scandal as bosses ‘consider cutting hospital beds’
NHS leaders are being forced to consider cutting hospital beds, closing hospitals, and even reducing services for children and cancer patients, a new study has claimed.
In a bid to meet savings targets from the government and reduce its £6.6 billion deficit, hospital leaders are now cutting or rationing patient care, according to think tank the King’s Fund.
The study reveals NHS leaders said they have been forced to cut services thought of as not essential including hospital beds, community paediatric services, community phlebotomy, mental health support for cancer patients.
Hospital leaders also claimed they may have to consolidate hospital beds for services such as stroke or critical care beds.
The cuts come in a bid to meet government savings demands, called “eyewatering” by NHS leaders, to reduce the £6.6 billion deficit facing the NHS.
The government has been warned it could be repeating the mistakes made under a previous Labour government that led to the Mid Staffordshire scandal, in which between 400 and 1,200 patients, from January 2005 to March 2009, were estimated to have died as a result of poor care, by the Mid Staffordshire Hospitals trust.
A public inquiry into the scandal, led by Sir Robert Francis, revealed in 2013 that the failures were in part a consequence of the trust’s focus on achieving financial balance.
Source: The Independent, 18 May 2025