NHS to get '£30bn boost' in landmark spending review as other departments brace for cuts
The NHS will reportedly receive a £30bn boost in the government's spending review next week, but it may come at the expense of many other vital public services.
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves will outline how much each government department will receive over the next few years in her June 11 review on Treasury spending.
The rise in the Health Department's budget will likely mark it out as a key winner next week, while other departments could see their budgets slashed as a result.
Ms Reeves will reportedly argue that the boost will improve the NHS and raise living standards.
Under the plans, the NHS's day-to-day budget is expected to surge by 2.8% in real terms annually over the three-year spending review period, according to The Times.
It means £30bn will be added to its £200bn budget or £17bn in real terms, by 2028.
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The move is likely to deepen explosive rows within the cabinet as other ministers make their case for extra funding.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been pleading for spending increases for her department. She has had the backing of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warning against proposed cuts to police.
Along with other police chiefs, he warned the cuts would have severe and “far reaching consequences” if the Treasury pushes ahead with slashing funding.
Meanwhile, deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner is also expected to lose out - likely meaning cuts to housing and other services.
The chancellor has warned that “not every department will get everything that they want” as she prepares to slash department budget.
However, another expected winner is the Department of Defence. Prime Minister Sir KeIr Starmer has vowed to spend 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with an "ambition" to raise this to 3% in the next parliament, a period which could stretch to 2034.
This will rise to 3.5% within a decade, Labour announced this week.
Speaking to LBC'S Ali Miraj, Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned of tax rises and a hit to other services if the government pushes ahead with plans to supercharge NHS funding.
He said: “Anything bigger than 2.5% a year for the NHS, we think means that, on average, other departments outside of Defence are going to be cut.”
“The ones that are after day-to-day spending will be finding that the more generous the government is to the NHS, the more of a struggle it will be to persuade the Treasury to give them what they want.
“So that could be things like the kind of services local authorities provide, they might be seeing their grants from central government cut, potentially putting pressure on council tax."
He added the police force and those departments which are after capital spending, such as the Housing department wanting spending on social housing, are likely to be impacted.
"I think they might find it difficult to get what they want, given the big commitments to defence the Prime Minister has made and that strategic defence document that came out just this week which suggested we need to spend a lot more on capital investment within the defence budget,” he added.
Meanwhile, Health chiefs have warned that simply pumping cash into the health service without a long-term workforce plan may not go far enough to save it.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that without a vast restructuring to the way the health service treats patients, a funding boost “is not going to enable us to achieve recovery and reform”
Labour has vowed to transform the NHS, slashing waiting times and revolutionising the care sector.
The party has pledged to have 92% of patients treated within 18 weeks by the next election, a target not hit for a decade. Currently, just 60% are seen within this time.
Last month, waiting lists surged 7.4 million, sparking warnings from NHS bosses fearing they will not be able to hit the interim target of 65% next year.
Meanwhile, A&E waiting time targets have not been met for more than a decade, while the 18-minute target for category 2 ambulance calls has never been hit outside the pandemic.
The Health department announced this week that £450 million will be put into creating better care and more facilities, with an emphasis on caring for people closer to their homes.
The Government wants to cut the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours for a hospital bed – or to be discharged from A&E – so this occurs “less than 10% of the time”, according to the new document.
The new Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for England says more needs to be done to drive down long waits, cut delayed discharges and improve care for patients.
It comes as the new chief executive of NHS England Sir Jim Mackey described the "shock and worry" of discovering that "undeveloped" plans for the NHS in England projected a multi-billion deficit for this year.
He has said as he called on the service to “accelerate” improvements and stamp out unacceptable care which has become “normalised”.
While expecting "some growth" from the Treasury in the upcoming spending review, he said the service faces "big choices" to "tackle variation" and "improve service standards".
Meanwhile, Sir Jim said he will have "no problem" expressing his views to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Speaking at an event for the Medical Journalists Association in London, Sir Jim slammed "unacceptable" care - particularly for the elderly.
He also expressed concerns over staff being "desensitised" to poor care - such as elderly people facing long waits on trolleys in A&E departments.
On spending he said: "The NHS is such a big part of public spending now we are pretty much maxed out on what's affordable.
"It is really now about delivering better value for money, getting more change, getting back to reasonable productivity levels, but in a way that's human and is about standards and about quality."