Slippage

In August Ali Parsa went on a PR campaign to try and get the media to think that Hinchingbrooke and Circle were doing well. He succeeded, the compliant media reported what Parsa said rather than report what was actually happening (Hinchingbrooke was behind plan financially and Circle had to beg for extra capital from its shareholders telling them it was insolvent).

In an interview with the Today programme Parsa was asked about the finances at the trust (4:30):

Justin Webb: and you're still on course? my interest is when you expect to begin to be able to take some profit from your activities at Hinchingbrooke?
Ali Parsa: we are still on course, we think the hospital should balance its books next year, it should finish this year on a balanced book, that is what we are working on

Parsa is saying that by next April the trust will have a "balanced book". Webb, unfortunately, didn't have the then recent July finance report which said that the trust was doing badly financially, and so didn't challenge Parsa on this point. (It's not Webb's fault: the quality of research in the health section of the BBC news department is extremely poor, as we have seen during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act. BBC health journalists have little knowledge of the NHS or what is happening to it.)

On Thursday Hinchingbrooke gave its finance report for quarter 2 and their finances are no better than before. HSJ report that a spokeswoman for Circle said:

"We’re confident that we're now on track to reach a sustainable break-even position by the end of the next financial year."

That's the next financial year, Parsa said that the "balanced book" would be achieved this year. So Circle are now saying that their plan has slipped by a year.