NHS DIVIDEND WOULD SEND OUT RIGHT BREXIT SIGNAL
BORIS JOHNSON has hit upon a simple way for politicians to boast about getting maximum results out of healthcare services.
Visiting Santiago, Chile, during his tour of South America this week, the Foreign Secretary hailed the “outstanding record” of a brand new hospital he was taken to inspect. “It has 100 per cent success, with zero infections, zero cardiac arrests, zero mortality of any kind. That’s because so far it has no patients,” the Foreign Secretary joked. “In many ways this is the ideal hospital for a political visit.” The quip was typical of Mr Johnson’s humourpacked approach to diplomacy.
Sadly for the Government he is a part of, making the NHS fit enough to face its eighth decade is proving to be a serious issue. Cabinet ministers have been wrangling for months about how to find the cash for a significant hike in funding for the overstretched service. An announcement is expected soon, in time for the 70th birthday celebrations for the NHS this summer.
Whitehall sources suggest the increase will come close to matching the £350million a week extra on health spending demanded by Mr Johnson and others during the 2016 EU referendum campaign. Injecting such a sum into the NHS from the money saved by cancelling the UK’s multibillion membership fee would be seen as signal that Brexit will bring real gains for the country rather than simply being a dreary squabble about customs arrangements.
Yet concern is growing that Theresa May and Chancellor Phillip Hammond will not be bold enough about trumpeting the benefits of the Brexit dividend. The Prime Minister is understood to shy away from celebrating the gains to be had from leaving the EU out of fear of exacerbating the divisions within the electorate while the Brexit-sceptic Chancellor is unconvinced that any economic advantage is on the way.
If ministers play down hopes of a Brexit dividend for the NHS, they will signal to voters that tax rises are coming to pay for the increased resources. The danger is that the Tories will always end up being outflanked by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in any tax-and-spend battle.