A further twist in the saga of NHS charities; the government is delaying a new accounting standard that means that the assets of NHS charities where an NHS body is the sole trustee have to be included in the assets of the NHS body. People fear this will mean that the assets of NHS bodies will be reduced because of their charitable assets, when the charities should not be supporting the public purse. This mainly affects the big old teaching hospitals that had charities which carried on after the NHS was founded (some of them are very rich), but there are other charities set up for various purposes. Phil No-hope, the care minister, claims this is all about transparency. The Charities Commission says, apparently ,that they would like to see such bodies appoint more independent trustees, but not just so that they can get round these new accounting rules.

I worry about these bodies. I can see that leftovers of the pre-NHS hospital charities needed to continue with a charitable existence, and, amazingly to me, some people apparently leave legacies to NHS hospitals. You have to ask why – these are public bodies. The problem is that these large extra funds support the aims of some already privileged NHS bodies to gain even more privilege, and ignore participative planning and consultation with the people using their services and their local communities. In particular, it encourages expenditure in already rich parts of the country, mainly on hospitals or in the interest of maintaining their NHS hegemony. Charitable monies should be redirected towards community services and not to the interests or already big rich hospitals.

You can see the news report on: http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/978963/Delay-sought-new-rules-NHS-accounts/60B8C11D571BD969193A7C2FF064BE1D/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin