NHS hospitals have been told to make deeper cuts by the health regulator Monitor. They said last year that hospitals should make cuts of 4.6% from 2013. But in a letter to NHS hospitals Monitor now say that these cuts should increase to 7%.

This hike would mean that a typical hospital with a £300 million turnover will have to find savings of £21 million.

Such cuts will seriously impact the delivery of services to patients. NHS workers will be put under intolerable pressure. Their reward will be worsening terms and conditions, including wage cuts and redundancies.

It was recently revealed that the NHS has been targeted to make £50 billion (yes, billion!) in savings over the next decade. Such devastating cost cutting would make NHS even more attractive to private operators, such as Virgin Care who recently took over care services in Surrey.

A statement by Mike Farrar, the chief executive of NHS Confederation, said that such deep cuts would mean more than ‘closing the odd ward.’