NHS costs over £25k to be published

By Alisdair Stirling

All NHS trusts including PCTs will have to publish expenditure over £25,000 as part of the Government's massive NHS spending clampdown.

A letter sent to strategic health authority directors of finance last week instructed them to publish details of expenditure online from April onwards by the end of October and then on an ongoing basis each month.

Details should be published on PCT websites with a link to the Government's data.gov.uk website as part of its transparency drive.

The move is the latest in a string of announcements aimed at slashing NHS spending - including a pledge to cut NHS administration by half and plans revealed by Pulse last week for PCTs to sign GPs up lists of radical cost-cutting measures.

NHS managers are warning that PCTs - and the GP consortia when they take over the financial reins in 2012 - will be left tens of millions of pounds in deficit unless GPs back the cuts.

Cash