NHS’S extra £5.5bn must give value for money, Sunak tells Cabinet
‘You can’t measure NHS performance by cash. There has to be much more focus on getting results’
THE CHANCELLOR spearheaded warnings in Cabinet this week that extra cash being poured into the NHS must achieve value for money by boosting its performance.
Rishi Sunak highlighted that an extra £5.5billion has been channelled to the health service for the second half of this financial year, while a manifesto-busting tax rise from next April will see an additional £12billion injected next year.
He is understood to have told colleagues that the benefits of the extra spending needed to be felt by people whose pay packets would be dented to fund it.
The Chancellor’s intervention prompted frank contributions from Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, Steve Barclay, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Jacob Reesmogg, the Commons leader, The Spectator revealed.
The three other frontbenchers are understood to have echoed Mr Sunak’s sentiments, agreeing that the Government must be accountable for delivering better health outcomes after awarding the significant funding increase to the health service.
Mr Barclay was said to have flagged his past experience as a Treasury minister, remarking how difficult it had been to extract financial data from the NHS to scrutinise its spending, including areas of under-spending.
Mr Kwarteng was said to have recalled his own experience of such issues while working as parliamentary private secretary to Philip Hammond, the former chancellor.
The debate served to heap pressure on Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, to expedite reform of the health service, which has been a key priority since he took over the brief in June.
One Government source said: “Around the Cabinet, there was certain agreement that you can’t keep throwing money at the NHS without expecting better service.
“It’s about outcomes, not just raw cash. That’s true of all public services. The recent issue with GP appointments has thrown this into sharper political light.”
Recent figures showed that more than a third of patients were still not being seen in person by their GPS.
The insider added: “You can’t measure NHS performance by cash. There has to be much more focus on getting results, otherwise the public will lose trust.”
A second Government insider confirmed that multiple frontbenchers used the Cabinet meeting to demand better “patient outcomes and value for money” and a focus on “outputs rather than inputs”.
The candid exchange came after Mr Javid gave a presentation on the social care system reforms, which were unveiled yesterday in a white paper.
A Whitehall source said last night that Mr Javid was working hard on “broader reforms and tackling backlogs”, as 5.8 million people languish on NHS waiting lists.
The Government was seeking to ensure a system that “works for patients and works for taxpayers” following “record investment” in the health service, the insider said.
The Health Secretary told NHS leaders at a conference last month that reforming the service was a “priority”.
“We face a choice,” Mr Javid said. “Do we use this moment to put the NHS on the strongest possible footing for the future? Or simply return to what was there before the pandemic?”