If the Times is right and Ministers really are imposing new rules on NHS charities requiring all donations — including those to specialist children and cancer units, local fundraising campaigns, teaching hospitals and local community trusts — to be listed on a hospital’s balance sheet then we are on a slippery slope.
I have never been entirely comfortable with the publicly funded National Health Service being topped up by charitable donations, but I recognise that it is an important source of funding, that it engages communities and gives them a stake in their local hospitals and it enables adminstrators to acquire equipment that might not be affordable otherwise. That is why I have given to such charities in the past and will continue to do so.
I share the concern of charities that this change, due to come into effect in April, will be used as a smokescreen to hide cuts in health spending, with ministers reducing funds for organisations such as children’s hospitals that have successful charitable arms. I am not the only one who thinks that:
The Charities Commission says that this is “wholly inappropriate” because combining the trust and charity accounts will jeopardise the charity’s autonomy and discourage donations. About £330 million was given to 300 NHS charities in the year to June 2008, and they control an estimated £2 billion of assets. A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “The Charity Commission does not agree with the interpretation of the accounting rules in the Department of Health letter to NHS bodies. We are currently engaging with the Department on this matter.”
Liberal Democrat MP, Jenny willott is quite forthright in her views. She says: “This could lead to hundreds of millions of pounds of charitable donations being effectively nationalised under the NHS.
“The Government has no right to get its hands on any charitable NHS funds. People make donations on the understanding that it is up to charities to decide how to spend it, not ministers.”
It is also the case that shortly after we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the NHS, another of Aneurin Bevan’s golden rules is being broken by a Labour Government. Ministers were banned from counting charitable donations towards the central NHS budget under the original legislation that created the NHS in 1948.
I am not clear yet how this will apply in Wales. It may well be that the accounting practices of the Welsh NHS are a matter for the Welsh Government but it could also be that this is a non-devolved matter. Something else to ask the Minister when we return in two weeks time.
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