Hunt admits that public demand for NHS has grown beyond expectations

The NHS is struggling to cope because demand has grown much faster than anticipated, MPs have been told.

Jeremy Hunt, health secretary for England, acknowledged the heavy pressures that NHS staff were working under when he appeared before the parliamentary health committee in a one-off evidence session on 31 October.

MPs asked whether the health secretary agreed with the criticisms made in a report from the House of Lords about poor long term planning, published in April.1

Hunt agreed that some of the criticisms were fair, saying, “The area where I feel the biggest lack of long term planning has been is around workforce needs and the failure to understand over many years the lead times necessary to increase capacity in the …