Cancer tests and virtual wards targeted for new cuts

Recently-opened cancer testing centres and virtual wards will be among the services cut back as the NHS seeks to eliminate a £6.6bn forecast deficit, senior leaders have told HSJ.

Plans also include restricting treatments, extending waiting times, de-funding the third sector, and significant job cuts for clinicians as well as managers.

HSJ asked NHS trust and commissioner CEOs and finance directors across the country what actions would be required in their organisation, after NHSE last week demanded they “get a grip” of deficits and “accelerate” decisions.

Cost-cutting measures being proposed or considered locally include:

• Closing community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and cancelling plans for more CDCs. 
• Closing or reducing the size of virtual wards, whose expansion since Covid-19 has been repeatedly declared as one of the most significant reforms to shift care out of hospital.
• Cuts to schemes to carry out more elective work, including reducing out-of-hours “waiting list initiative” sessions and cancelling planned “elective hubs”. 
• Cutting staff numbers, most often corporate and non-clinical, but in some areas extending to reductions to clinical staff.
• Extending waiting times for planned operations and treatment, especially for procedures which currently have short waits, such as ophthalmology, which are often provided by the private sector. One CEO said it required “rationing of care” in these areas. There will be further delays and limiting of patients’ “right to choose” to use private services which diagnose autism and ADHD.

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Source: HSJ, 10 March 2025