ONE of the biggest criticisms the NHS has to counter is that it wastes a significant amount of money.

The £2m lost because of ‘phantom patients’ – those who remain registered with GPs but who have died or moved away – in the city is a classic case of this money-munching monolith.

The problem itself is an understandable one. GPs are dealing with thousands of patients within the city’s boundary alone and the bureaucracy to keep patient lists up to date is an unenviable task.

Unfortunately, the rather indifferent response from the medical profession that we report today betrays the unacceptable face of NHS wastage. Simply, it would appear there is a lack of will to tackle the problem because there is a lack of regard that this is actually taxpayer money.

This £2m has been extracted by the taxman and is just being frittered away to no useful effect. And that is just £2m lost in Oxford alone to a health service that moans it is under the financial cosh.

We do not believe GPs are so cash-coveting that they are deliberately scamming the system because it means more money in their pocket.

But you can rest assured that if a record-keeping problem was instead costing surgeries money, there would be huge demands for a solution.

Frankly, the NHS and GPs have to realise that this is not their money to waste. It’s ours. And as such they have to be accountable for every penny, rather than just shrug as they gobble up more money.