WHAT is going on with our health service?

Two weeks ago, we told you about 200 posts being cut at York Hospital. On Saturday, we reported that a mental health rehabilitation unit in York could shut. Today, we reveal that some beds at York Hospital will almost certainly go.

Where is it going to end?

The cash problems faced by the Selby and York Primary Care Trust are well documented. But it is far from alone. Nationally, the size of the NHS deficit is thought to have reached more than £700m. Nurses and doctors up and down the country are being laid off and hospital beds closed.

And yet we know that spending on the NHS has reached record levels. So where is all the money going?

Part of the problem is ever-growing demand for more and more expensive health care. We are all living longer and an ageing population puts more of a strain on health service resources.

New drugs are also expensive. But there must be more to it than that. Tony Blair's government has an obsession with targets - and as hospitals and health trusts struggle to meet them, the risk is that cash is not always being spent in the most effective ways possible. Especially when those targets seem to change almost by the day.

Then there are doctors' salaries. Yes, we all want health workers to be properly paid. But do GPs really deserve to earn £250,000 a year, as some are? Or even the average GP salary of £95,000?

The British health service used to be the pride of the world. It still is. But the Government has to sort out the financial mess before we have a health care system that is third world instead of first class.

Updated: 09:53 Monday, April 24, 2006