Health minister Phil Hope told the House of Commons yesterday that charitable donations made to hospital fundraising campaigns will never become part of general NHS budgets.

The Department of Health has stated that new international accounting rules due to come into effect in April might mean that some NHS charities – those where the NHS trusts act as sole trustees for their associated charities - have to consolidate their assets into the NHS Trust’s accounts. 

This means that public donations to such charities could be absorbed into general NHS budgets.

The Charity Commission has denounced the proposals as "wholly inappropriate" and said they are "tantamount to a form of nationalisation".  It is meeting with the Association of NHS Charities later this month to discuss how to stop the proposal from being implemented.

But yesterday, at Commons question time, Phil Hope said charitable gifts would never become part of the general NHS budget.

In response to a question from Conservative Tory former minister David Heathcoat-Amory, Hope said: “That is not the case and never will be. Charity trustees will continue to have full responsibility for charitable funds – there is no question whatever that charitable funds could be used as part of NHS budgets; I want that very important message to go out from the House today.”

However, he admitted there was a “question” about accounting requirements, “but that is not a matter for Department of Health jurisdiction.

“I continue to work with the Treasury, Monitor, the Charity Commission and others to seek ways of strengthening the independent governance of NHS charities, to ensure that we meet that standard without invoking the requirement for consolidation, and that mater is currently under discussion.”

Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb added that there had been an “enormous amount of concern” about the issue and queried why the confusion has been allowed to go on for so long.  “Why can we not rule it out once and for all?” he asked.

Hope reiterated that “we are currently looking into the dilemma” and went on to point out that only one in ten NHS charities are even affected by this “possible accountancy change”.