It seems that the Department of Health and the Charities Commission are having a row about NHS charities. A new international accounting standard for public bodies requires the accounts to be consolidated with the NHS accounts, whereas the Charities Commission thinks a charity’s accounts should never be part of a public body’s accounts.

Web information on the issue:

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/948049/Charity-Commission-takes-stand-NHS-charities-accounts/63AA077707931EC526211C5DD9F168F7/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

Trust them to have an argument about the pointless end of the issue. This is a sign that NHS (and therefore public) bodies are controlling charities. You have to ask why? I realise that the history of this is that many of these are leftovers from when the healthcare system was turned from a largely charitable system to a public system (only 60 years ago, so of course we haven’t dealt with the problem yet). People gave charitable monies to (mainly) hospitals, so hospitals hung onto it; it gives them a bit of freedom of manoeuvre. What this means is that the historic NHS trusts, now mainly foundation trusts, have extra cash to do what they like with, instead of participating properly in local planning. This also gives an advantage to the richly endowed hospitals, in stead of spreading money around the country in accordance with needs.

What has this to do with social care and palliative care. It means that some hospitals can promote their internal palliative care without any concern for the planning of other local services, and advantage people where there is a rich inheritance when others might need it more. It’s time this source of inequality was ended and these charities floated off to be truly independent.

Another pic of the new St Christopher’s. You may think this is just like a commercial gym, and that’s the point of it. Patients visitng the new Anniversary Centre can book into this or take part in a regular physiotherapy programme; the fitter you are, the more you can combat your illness and its effects on you.