Osborne gives in over NHS spending

“Even with additional funding this will be the most austere decade for the NHS since its inception”.

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is to receive additional funding from HM Treasury, with an immediate investment of GBP6bn per year, the United Kingdom government announced on Tuesday.

However, he has confirmed that the Spending Review is to allocate an extra £3.8 billion to the health service in 2016-17. It will help stabilise current pressures on hospitals, GPs, and mental health services, and kickstart the NHS Five Year Forward View’s fundamental redesign of care.

The NHS will receive £3.8 billion in 2016/17, the chancellor George Osborne has announced, ahead of his spending review tomorrow.

It will bring spending to £106.5bn in 2016-17, which is the equivalent of a 3.7% or £3.8bn rise.

“Clinicians and staff in all settings need to be able to deliver best possible outcomes for patients, equipping the NHS with information, not just to signpost patients to other services, but the ability to connect patients with the next stage of the care or treatment they need”, the pre-tender said.

But private spending on healthcare is low by global standards, and according to OECD figures total health spending in 2013 was less than nearly all other advanced economies with a similar population at 8.5 per cent of the economy.

Rob Webster, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that while the extra money appears to be a positive step, “significant risks remain”.

“There’s also a concern that some of this money might come from cutting services that the NHS depends on to support it – like sexual health or home care for older people”.

“The additional investment will deliver a truly 7-day health service, with the services people need being offered in hospitals at the weekend and people able to access a GP at evenings and weekends”.

Over the course of this Parliament, the government said it will spend more than half a trillion pounds on the health service and the extra funding will result in the NHS being able to deliver 800,000 more operations and treatments; a further two million diagnostic tests; provide over five million more outpatient appointments; and spend up to an extra GBP2bn on new drugs.

“This has been hard to ignore and we welcome the early announcement of elements of the settlement”.

“We are passionate about building an NHS that offers the safest, highest quality care anywhere in the world – with services smoothly operating seven days a week”. The money will be reinvested in front line services.

“Any move to redefine and shrink the definition of the NHS would be particularly worrying”.

The Treasury said the additional funding for NHS England meets the demands set out in the NHS’s own Five Year Forward View, and means it will be possible for the NHS to make £22bn in efficiency savings, which represents the 2-3% a year required by the government. If the Government is genuine about delivering new models of care and seven-day services across the NHS, then further investment will be needed.

“If the funding gap in social care is not adequately addressed, costs will be shifted to health and if we don’t use resources to keep people healthier for longer, we store up trouble for the future”, he added.