Nearly half of trust leaders (47%) are scaling back services to deliver on financial plans, with a further 43% considering this option, a survey by NHS Providers has found.
The survey, which received responses from 114 different trusts, accounting for 56% of the provider sector, found that virtual wards, rehabilitation centres, talking therapies and diabetes services for young people were the services identified as at risk.
It also suggested that 26% said they will need to close some services to deliver their financial plans, with a further 55% saying this was currently under consideration.
It comes as ICBs have been told their running cost envelope will be reduced to £19 per head. ICBs must submit plans on how they will meet this by 30 May, and deliver the target by the end of Q3 in 2025/26.
The NHS Providers survey also found that a third (37%) of trust leaders said their organisation was cutting clinical posts amid financial pressures, with a further 40% considering this.
Around 86% of trust leaders also said they would be cutting non-clinical teams, such as HR, finance, estates, digital and communications staff. There was also a reduction in temporary staffing costs reported among 91% of respondents, as well as a recruitment freeze among 85% of leaders.
Nearly nine in ten (88%) of respondents said they do not have enough funding to invest in prevention.
Interim chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery said: ‘NHS trusts face competing priorities of improving services for patients and boosting performance while trying to balance the books with ever-tighter budgets. National leaders must appreciate that makes a hard job even harder.
‘It’s really worrying to hear trust leaders tell us highly valued staff and services including vital work to address health inequalities and prevention could be among the early casualties of budget cuts. These decisions are never taken lightly and will always be a last resort.
‘They’re committed to working with the government to build a better health service but fear immediate financial pressures could undermine plans to transform the NHS.’
The BMA said it was ‘deeply concerning’ that so many trusts were thinking of cutting services.
Prof Phil Banfield, chair of BMA council, said: ‘Patients up and down the country will be wondering how this can be possible when they see hospitals already buckling under the pressure of understaffing, A&E patients lining corridors, waiting lists that seem endless and clinical staff eternally on the verge of burnout.
‘To be in that situation and then to cut the number of doctors will seem absurd to most people. We are already hugely under-doctored amongst comparable countries.
‘What we need is for Government to get a grip of a currently fragmented health system. There needs to be an honesty with the public about the scale of the financial challenge of restoring our NHS and the costs of reorganising services, which must be driven by the clinical need of patients, not managerial expediency.’
ICBs were told in March they must cut their running costs by around 50% by October 2025 and to focus on reducing duplication when making cuts.
