NHS leaders are underwhelmed at extra £6.2bn for NHS in next financial year

The government is to invest an extra £6.2bn (€6.9bn; $7.5bn) in the NHS next year and £1.5bn in social care as part of its spending review announced on 4 September, but health leaders have given it a lukewarm response. The BMA’s Chaand Nagpaul said that all the money had already been promised to the NHS and was not new, calling the announcement “another missed opportunity.”

The chancellor of the exchequer, Sajid Javid, announced his spending review, which is—unusually—just for a one year period, saying that he was setting “the real increase in day-to-day spending” next year at £13.8bn overall.

Speaking to the House of Commons Javid said that there was “no higher priority” than the NHS and pointed to the fact that last year the government had announced it would increase NHS spending by an extra £34bn over the period to 2023-24.

This figure is higher than the £20.5bn that the former prime minister Theresa May pledged for the NHS over the next five years.1 That figure is lower because it factored in inflation.

“Today we reaffirm our commitment to the NHS with a £6.2bn increase in NHS funding next year,” Javid said. “We’re investing more in training and professional development for our doctors and nurses.

“There will be over £2bn of new capital funding—starting with an upgrade to 20 hospitals this year and £250m for ground breaking new artificial intelligence technologies to help solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges, like earlier cancer detection, discovering new treatments, and relieving the workload of doctors and nurses.”

In addition, the government was making an additional £1.5bn for social care available to councils because, he said, “we can’t have an effective health service without an effective social care system, too.”

Before the spending announcement the Royal College of General Practitioners sent a letter to the chief secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak, urging him to use the spending review to boost the budget for education and training of GPs and other healthcare professionals by at least 3.6%, amounting to an increase of £160m.2

The college argued that 5000 doctors needed to be trained to be GPs every year—more than the current 3500 placements—to meet government targets to increase the workforce by at least 5000 full time equivalent GPs and to safeguard the care of patients.

Generally, health leaders gave a muted response to the funding increases, and the BMA described the spending review as “another missed opportunity.” Its chair of council, Chaand Nagpaul said, “After years of underinvestment the NHS has been left struggling to cope with year round pressures, leaving patients suffering long waits and doctors and their colleagues with rock bottom morale.

“Today represents another missed opportunity from the government to turn this around.

“Of the £6.2bn NHS funding lauded by the chancellor today, two thirds of it comes from money announced under the last prime minister in 2018. Most of what’s left is money announced for hospital upgrades last month, largely funded through savings already made by hospitals.”

He added, “There was no reversal to the £1bn public health cuts since 2015; no detail on exactly how the government plans to support doctors in training, stop them leaving through burnout, and future proof our medical workforce; and no long term capital spending plan to address the £6bn maintenance backlog or investment in GP practice premises.”

John Appleby, chief economist of the health think tank the Nuffield Trust, said, “Today’s spending round is sadly a missed opportunity to turn around years of cuts to the crucial budgets that support the NHS and the patients who depend on it.”

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare organisations, said, “Today’s spending round provides some much needed extra funding for the NHS and social care.

“But these are sticking plaster solutions and do not provide the long term certainty the NHS needs. Funding still falls short in key areas, including capital investment, social care, and public health.”