And yes, some of the seeds for this were sown long ago, in terms of Major starting and Blair continuing with the PFI.

But Cameron and Lansley are truly scary.

There was no shortage of wise voices warning Blair & Co that this would start to happen a decade down the line, just as they did Dave 'n' Gideon about their cack-handed economic "strategy".

But the first thing you learn at Public School is that you know better than anyone.

The Skin

until there is no NHS.

Sadly, many Brits do not even know, let alone realize what is happening to the beloved NHS.

Haven't they learned from America's healthcare failures?

The issue is the PFI's as LeftishBrit mentioned above - the lease payments on the hospital premises etc to which the Trust is committed.

The BBC link in the OP has been expanded to include that explanation.

It doesn't mean that anything disappears as such - its broadly speaking likely to be a management change over to one of the teaching hospitals. Any savings would derive from better management , if any , and reduced management duplication.

I don't like what Andrew Lansley's doing, but hearing Ed Balls defending PFI this morning made me quite angry as PFI has been a total disaster for public services and has undeniably contributed to this mess.

10 years ago if you raised objections to PFI you got labelled a crank and a communist. Now hospitals face closure because of it.

is that the terms of the PFI's are recalculated over a different time period making matters even worse.

The whole PFI issue was and remains a gigantic scam.

It may well be this government's version of the 'poll tax' that brought down the Thatcher government.

There is a huge amount of opposition, both from most health professionals and from the public.

http://www.saveournhs.moonfruit.com/

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/what-next-on-the-nhs-

http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2012/may/bma-leader-calls-for-vigilance-as-health-bill-becomes-law

http://news.sky.com/story/918574/medical-unions-declare-war-on-new-health-bill

As regards the South London trust, unfortunately this is mostly the result of reforms that happened in the 90s and were not reversed by New Labour - though it will certainly be handled worse because of Lansley's involvement.. But I certainly hope that we can prevent the further disaster of Lansley from fully succeeding in selling off the NHS to all his pals in the insurance business, oops, I mean implementing major reforms.

My American wife still can't believe the look of horror and disbelief on Brits' faces when she disillusions them from the idea that it's just like the NHS except you pay an Insurance company, not the State.

The Skin

that what they pay in the US equates to what we pay here when you account for both employee's and employer's NH contributions which in round terms equate to 25% of gross wages. The only difference being that our cover here is from conception to death and as such the expression "pre-exisitng condition" is meaningless.

Given socialised healthcare in the US they'd just need to adapt to their apparent current willingness to sue for spurious reasons.

An NHS hospital trust is on course to be placed in a form of special measures after accumulating a deficit of £150m dating back to what the government has described as an "unaffordable" private finance initiative signed under Labour.

The South London Healthcare Trust, which runs three hospitals in south-east London, is expected to become the first trust to be placed in the "unsustainable providers regime". Under powers introduced by Labour in 2009 Lansley would appoint an administrator to run the trust. The health secretary served notice on the trust, which runs Queen Mary's in Sidcup, Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich and the Princess Royal University hospital in Bromley, that he is minded to place it under control of a Trust Special Administrator. This would lead to the suspension of non-executive directors and would deprive executives, such as the finance director, of their positions on the trust's board.

Lansley moved to pre-empt a Labour attack by saying that many of the problems dated back to a £2.5bn deal signed by the last government under the private finance initiative (PFI), to rebuild the Bromley and Woolwich hospitals. This costs the trust £61m a year, 14.4% of its income, and will last until 2029-2030 in the case of the Queen Elizabeth hospital Woolwich and 2031-2032 in the case of the Princess Royal hospital in Bromley.

Lansley wrote in his letter to the trust: "A central objective for all providers is to ensure they deliver high quality services to patients that are clinically and financially sustainable for the long term. I recognise that South London Healthcare NHS Trust faces deep and longstanding challenges, some of which are not of its own making. "Nonetheless, there must be a point when these problems, however they have arisen, are tackled. I believe we are almost at this point.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/25/nhs-trust-special-measures-debt

BBC used a figure of £69 million and the Guardian £150 million.

South London Healthcare NHS Trust is to be put into administration after it ran into financial trouble, the government has announced.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has appointed a trust special administrator to go into the trust.

Mr Lansley said: "I have decided it is in the interests of the health service and, in particular, of the patients the trust serves."

The trust was only created in 2009 and is millions of pounds in debt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18812193