Editor's blog Friday 22 October 2010: NHS Confederation and Monitor react to news of NHS underspend changes by Treasury

You will probably have seen the earlier post about HSJ"s story on the effective loss of NHS suprplus underspends.

We have two reactions to that story.

Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive, NHS Confederation
"We have sought and had reassurance from the Department Health that it will protect the surpluses NHS organisations have worked very hard to create. While we have been given this reassurance, if this later turned out not to be the case then this would send a very poor signal to the whole NHS.

“If you generate a deficit, then you should be responsible for it - and if you generate a surplus, then you should benefit. What the Nuffield analysis demonstrates is that the current system for doing this is too opaque. We need much more clarity, so nobody is in any doubt on where they stand”.

A spokesman for Monitor, independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts
“There is no mechanism in place to ‘claw back’ FT surpluses”.