Cut NHS waste before prescribing more cash

eMerGeNcy units overloaded. Waiting times rising. elderly patients blocking much-needed beds because there aren’t enough care home places. GP appointments taking days to arrange. appalling cancer and stroke survival rates. and even infant mortality on the rise...

Few would argue with the view that the NHS is in the throes of a crisis.

So yes, Theresa May’s pledge of an extra £20billion a year should provide staff and patients with some much-needed relief – at least until the next crisis comes along.

With a crucial and potentially perilous Brexit week coming up in the commons, the Prime Minister was shrewd to emphasise that a large chunk of this increased funding will come from the so-called ‘Brexit bonus’ – the cash Britain will save when we no longer have to pay a huge annual fee for the privilege of belonging to the eU.

as ever, sour remainers and doom-laden think-tanks such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies claim our economy will plummet so badly after the split with Brussels that any such bonus will be swallowed up by the financial crash.

But the Project Fear merchants have been wrong about everything else. Why should we take any notice of their bleating now?

However, the Brexit bonus will only stretch so far. even after a new efficiency drive (how many of those have we had in recent years?), some of the new cash will still have to be found elsewhere.

Mrs May said yesterday that the country would have to contribute ‘a bit more’, which sounded disturbingly like coded language for ‘pay more tax’. Whether it was dressed up as a hypothecated NHS tax, a rise in National Insurance, VaT or basic income tax, this would be a deeply unfair and unnecessary burden on hard-working families, who have already borne the brunt of austerity.

For all its many virtues, the NHS remains a wasteful, inefficient and largely unreconstructed behemoth. Before we pour yet more taxpayers’ money into it, there must be fundamental change. Bloated management structures and salaries, ludicrous procurement arrangements that mean hospitals are massively overcharged for essentials such as rubber gloves and toilet rolls, billions spent on agency staff and locums – the litany of waste is endless.

So yes, £20billion a year will provide a fix for now. But how long before the begging bowl is out again?

Without real, radical reform, no amount of money will ever be enough.