Town missing out on health millions (From Warrington Guardian)

Town missing out on health millions

9:00am Friday 22nd March 2013 in News

WARRINGTON has got £32m less to spend on health in the town compared on average to the rest of the north west.

The shocking difference was revealed during a Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group meeting last week and was met with frustration from board members.

The CCG will be taking charge of the town’s health budget from April 1 and have now been left with an initial shortfall of £15m.

Stephen Sutcliffe, chief finance officer, said: “We have got £231m to spend in 2013/14 which works out at £1,100 for each person in Warrington.

“It’s a lot of money but if you compare ourselves to the rest of the country and the north west, it’s significantly hampered.

“We can only imagine what we could do if we could have had another £32m.”

Most of the money will be spent on Warrington Hospital, GP prescribing, community services through Bridgewater and mental health services with 5 Boroughs Partnership with plans to integrate services to save cash.

Mr Sutcliffe confirmed the decision cannot be appealed and has been based on a variety of factors including deprivation.

Mr Sutcliffe added: “It’s been worked on for a number of years but we thought it was going to be more reflective of Warrington’s population.

“Deprivation is not as bad in comparison to some areas of the north west but it doesn’t take into account our age profile which is rapidly increasing.

“Across the m62 Knowlsey have another £100m to spend and I can’t believe the population there is so dramatically different to here.

“There’s a level of frustration and anger as we have been a poorly allocated health service for a while and hoped this would resolve it.”