Tories’ 70th birthday cash boost for NHS
THERESA May will grant the NHS a ‘significant increase’ in funding to mark its 70th birthday, Jeremy Hunt has revealed.
The Health Secretary said the Prime Minister wanted to plough in extra funds to prove the party can be trusted to run the NHS.
And he said the health service needs extra money to tackle chronic understaffing, cope with the ageing population and improve care.
It comes as it emerged Conservative MPs are being asked whether they would support a tax or national insurance rise to pay for the NHS.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated an extra £850 in tax per household would be needed by 2022 to ensure the Health Service is fit for the future.
Brexiteers want the Chancellor to boost spending and honour the Leave campaign’s pledge of £350million more a week for the NHS. Mr Hunt told the Guardian that the Prime Minister will ditch the austerity-era 1 per cent annual rises it has received since 2010.
‘She is unbelievably committed,’ he said. ‘You should not underestimate how committed she is to the NHS. So she is absolutely 100 per cent behind getting this right.
‘I’ve been making the NHS’s case that we need significant and sustainable funding increases to meet the demographic challenges we face, and the Prime Minister completely appreciates that.
‘Now the economy is back on its feet and growing much more healthily we’re able to have a discussion for the first time about a significant increase in resources, and that presents enormous opportunity for the country in terms of the type of NHS that our children and grandchildren will experience.’ The Health Secretary also admitted he is unlikely to be able to fulfil his pledge, first made in 2015, to boost the number of GPs in England by 5,000 by 2020.
He admitted that ‘ patient safety in the NHS is still deeply flawed’ – saying too many staff remained ‘terrified’ to speak out about mistakes in case they get disciplined or sacked.
And he claimed Brexit had contributed to staff shortages in the NHS.
Mr Hunt has been urging colleagues to agree the 4 per cent annual increases the IFS says is
‘Once in generation challenge’
necessary – but the Treasury wants to limit rises to 2.5 per cent.
He told the Guardian: ‘ We have to recognise that we have a once-in-a-generation challenge and the choice we have as a country is: are we going to deal with that challenge in an ad hoc way, living hand to mouth year in year out, or are we going to look at this strategically?’
Mr Hunt said extra NHS spending could boost Tory electoral fortunes.
‘The NHS remains for the vast majority of people, in poll after poll, the most important public service,’ he said. ‘It will cost serious money to give the NHS a decent birthday present. So what’s the argument I make?
‘One of them is that as a Conservative politician I feel passionately that the Conservative vision has to be about delivering the highest quality public services.
‘People generally think of Conservatives as competent and they need to see that competence in action in delivering the public services that matter to everyone.’