The financial problems of the acute hospitals in Shropshire have been well trailed - a £30 million deficit the last I heard. The implications have not.
Government obsession with setting targets ignores the harsh reality that unless the Government abandons their own funding rules, the NHS is heading into a revenue and cash crisis.
The Primary Care Trust is not immune either. Next month it is due to consider a report into how it will cut its deficit.
What will this mean for services in Shropshire? The early signs are not encouraging: night cover of the Minor Injuries Units in Bridgnorth and Ludlow are being cut from next week. Bishop's Castle community hospital is subject to a feasibility study to consider options for its future.
There is no NHS money in the county for the encouraging Herceptin drug for those breast cancer patients expected to benefit. So despite what the Prime Minister said last week in the House of Commons, a postcode lottery is operating within the NHS for several treatments approved by NICE.
The Government has contrived a system in crisis. It has added large numbers of administrators to monitor its targets. It has pushed through new contracts with clinical staff raising costs. It has introduced the Working Time Directive cutting hours for doctors causing shortages and raising costs. Now it has no money to fill junior posts, so newly qualifying nurses and physiotherapists have few jobs to go to despite years of training.
At the last election Labour promised the NHS was safe in their hands. There is a growing groundswell of evidence in Shropshire that it is not.
