NHS: We need even more
Huge handout isn’t enough to prevent millions of patients facing long delays, warn health chiefs
MINISTERS last night vowed that the billions of pounds in extra NHS funding would clear the Covid backlog by 2025 – but health bosses complained that it still wasn’t enough.
The Health Service will receive the vast majority of the £36billion raised by the national insurance hike over the next three years, with social care receiving a £5.3billion slice.
The Prime Minister promised the huge cash injection would help the NHS get ‘back on its feet’, with the money funding nine million extra operations and checks before the next general election.
He admitted that waiting lists would ‘get worse before they get better’, but insisted that the catch-up programme funded by the new health levy would be the biggest in NHS history.
And he declared that in three years’ time, the service would aim to treat around 30 per cent more elective patients than before the pandemic.
Ministers have also promised NHS reform and investment in new technology to ensure the money is not wasted – and have promised they will push the health service to ‘110 per cent capacity’.
Referring to the cash being used to tackle the elective backlog, Mr Johnson told a Downing Street press conference yesterday: ‘This is fundamental to putting our NHS back on its feet post-Covid.’
But health bosses last night said the settlement leaves a ‘significant shortfall’ and warned that millions of patients will still face long delays.
The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, which represent hospitals and health organisations, claimed it would still leave a funding gap of around £3.5billion a year for frontline services in England. They had wanted £10billion a year just to clear the patient backlog and additional costs arising from the pandemic.
They also warned that hospitals would be forced into ‘impossible choices’ about which patients will receive treatment. A joint statement said: ‘NHS leaders have unfortunately become accustomed to having less money than the service needs.
But the size of the funding gap remains daunting and will significantly impact the kind of care that the NHS can provide to the public in the months and years ahead.’
The statement raises fears that the vast majority of the money raised by the new health and social care levy will end up being swallowed up by the NHS.
But Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: ‘Properly funded, we can tackle not just the NHS backlog and expand the social care safety net, we can afford the nurses’ pay rise, invest in the newest, most modern equipment, prepare for the next pandemic, and provide one of the largest investments ever to upskill social care workers.
‘In other words, we can build the modern, more efficient health and social care services the British public deserves.’
And Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the Government would ‘ensure that the vital work of routine operations – things like hip replacements, cataract surgery – never stops’.
The number of patients waiting for elective surgery and routine treatment in England is now at a record high of 5.5 million. The number is estimated to reach 13million by the end of the year without action.
The Government’s plan for health and social care states that the extra cash ‘could deliver the equivalent of around nine million more checks, scans and procedures’.
‘Millions will still face delays’