£6bn will be ploughed into NHS
AN ADDITIONAL £6billion is to be ploughed into the NHS as Jeremy Hunt seeks to improve productivity and cut waiting lists using artificial intelligence.
Hospital efficiency will be measured under the plans, with the best-performing trusts handed extra financial rewards. Claiming that “the NHS is, rightly, the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British”, the Chancellor said that £3.4 billion would be earmarked “to modernise NHS IT systems so they’re as good as the best in the world”.
Mr Hunt said the package would help unlock £35billion of savings, and save doctors and nurses 13 million hours a year. He also promised an extra £2.5 billion to help the NHS meet pressures in the coming year. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that without this, the health service would have seen the biggest real-term cuts since the 1970s.
David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS, said: “We can’t rule out further top-ups later in the year, though – funding is still set to be tight and in-year NHS top-ups have become something of a tradition.”
The additional funding comes on top of existing health spending of £182 billion, which has increased an average of 5.6 per cent a year in real terms since 2019-20.
Artificial intelligence will be rolled out to cut the amount of time medics spend filling in forms, including the deployment of more sophisticated transcription services. Pilot schemes found automating patient notes and GP letters freed up medics to spend more time with patients, with one scheme halving the amount of time spent on admin.
Across the NHS, this could unlock an annual productivity benefit of £500-850 million, he said. Mr Hunt said improvements to the NHS app so patients can modify all appointments would cut the number of missed appointments by up to 500,000.
He also promised the rollout of technology including AI to help doctors read MRI and CT scans more accurately and quickly. Mr Hunt said this would
‘The way we tax people’s income is particularly unfair’
‘It is not the silver bullet that’s going to rescue the Tory party’s fortunes’
immigration also increased, while the employment rate is estimated to fall in the coming years despite Mr Hunt’s efforts to get people off benefits and into work. Near the end of his speech, the Chancellor said: “The way we tax people’s income is particularly unfair. If you get your income from having a job, you pay two types of tax - National Insurance Contributions and income tax.
“If you get it from other sources, you only pay one. This double taxation of work is unfair. The result is a complicated system that penalises work instead of encouraging it.” He added later that “our long-term ambition is to end this unfairness” and said: “When it is responsible, when it can be achieved without increasing borrowing and when it can be delivered without compromising high-quality public services, we will continue to cut National Insurance as we have done today so we truly make work pay.”
The position is likely to feature prominently in the coming election campaign, according to insiders familiar with Budget planning. The phrase “double taxation” performed well in polling, according to one Downing Street source, with the positioning seen as helping re-establish Tory tax-cutting credibility.
Employee NI was reduced from 12 per cent to 10 per cent in last year’s Autumn Statement and then lowered to eight per cent yesterday. Similar reductions in the NI paid by the self-employed have been seen.
Treasury estimates suggest stopping all workers paying NI would cost around £50 billion, and potentially benefit the average worker by around £2,000 a year. The new position does not include ending the NI contributions paid by employers. Mr Hunt and other government ministers declined to give any detail on how or when the ambition would be delivered. Mr Sunak previously raised NI when chancellor.
Some Tory MPS demanded specifics, with John Stevenson, who chairs the Northern Research Group, calling for a commitment to abolish NI in the election manifesto.
Others bemoaned the lack of income tax cuts, with Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, saying: “Pensioners have lost out as a result.” David
Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “If I’d had my way, I would not have gone for National Insurance – I’d have gone for reducing income tax.”
With the Tories around 20 percentage points behind Labour, there was debate about whether the Budget provided a boost to the party’s election chances. George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, said on his Political Currency podcast: “It is not the silver bullet that’s going to rescue the Tory party’s fortunes, but it is a strong salvo that opens the long campaign to the next general election.”