LONDON (Reuters), Aug 18 - Hospitals across England may have to close or cut services under plans to reduce the growing National Health Service (NHS) deficit, the government said on Friday.
Critics say the changes could cost lives and will hit staff morale, already low after job cuts and sweeping reforms.
"In some areas there are too many hospitals providing the same, or similar services, which isn't value for money," a Department of Health spokesman said.
It will be up to local NHS managers to make any cuts. They could switch acute care, such as casualty wards, to larger "super" hospitals.
The government wants more patients to be treated in their homes or by their local doctors. Ministers say people prefer not to go to hospital for treatment.
Acting NHS Chief Executive Ian Carruthers said in June all district general hospitals face major change after the NHS deficit hit 512 million pounds.
Campaign group Health Emergency said patients will not benefit.
"This is all cash-driven," said Geoff Martin, the group's head of campaigns. "It's not about improving quality and access to care for patients."
Health union Unison said the government's NHS reform was moving too quickly and had damaged staff morale.
"The government needs to stop and think," a Unison spokeswoman said. "Those services are not available in the community yet."
New hospitals
Ministers came under fire over plans to build new hospitals using private sector money.
Health Minister Andy Burnham said six hospitals will be built under the private finance initiative, where private companies build and run hospitals and lease them to the state.
"Each scheme has been rigorously checked to make sure that it offers value for money," he said in a statement.
The Conservative Party said the government had scaled back its hospital building programme.
"The government is engaged in a knee-jerk response to the financial crisis it created, permitting staff to be sacked, training places to be cut, and building projects to be scaled back," said Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.
Unison said PFI was discredited, while Health Emergency said the hospitals would be "colossally more expensive" than public sector projects.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has boosted health spending as part of reforms he says are needed to bring the NHS into the 21st century.
By Peter Griffiths
Last Updated: 2006-08-18 11:11:29 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)