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Health Statement

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June 18th 2018

 

Our long-term funding plan for the NHS

 

Issue: On 17 June 2018, the Prime Minister announced that the NHS will receive an additional £20 billion in real terms by 2023-24.

 

  • As part of the new long term plan for the NHS, and in the service’s 70th birthday year, we will set out plans for a five-year budget settlement. This reflects the fact that the NHS is our top spending priority.

 

  • The additional funding of £394 million a week in real terms recognises the superhuman efforts made by staff over the last few years to maintain services in the face of rapidly growing demand.  But it also presents a big opportunity for the NHS to write an entirely new chapter in its history.

 

  • In return for this spending boot, the NHS will produce a new long-term plan led by doctors – to ensure every penny is well spent on delivering world-class care for patients.

 

We are doing this by:

 

  • Increasing the NHS budget by 3.4 per cent a year on average. Our new five-year budget settlement will see funding grow by 3.4 per cent a year in real terms, plus an additional amount in the first year to address specific pressures.

 

  • Asking NHS leaders to produce a new ten-year plan. The long-term plan will be led by clinicians and professionals and supported by local health and cares systems across the country. It will set out a vision for the health service, and ensure every penny is well spent and waste and inefficiencies are reduced.

 

  • Delivering new services and better outcomes for patients. The long-term plan will support new priorities and drive the reforms that will deliver a better and more sustainable NHS. New priorities could include cancer survival rates and mental health waiting time standards.

 

  • Recognising the importance of capital investment and workforce training. We have already made commitments in these areas, increasing medical training places and providing funding for Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships. We will consider proposals for multi-year funding plans to support transformation and provide clinical training places.

 

  • Putting the social care system on a sustainable footing. We recognise that the NHS and social care are closely linked, and will ensure pressures on the NHS do not rise because of changes to social care services. Last year we provided an extra £2 billion for social care and we will bring forward further proposals for social care reform later this year.

 

  • Investing in public services because we have taken difficult but necessary decisions to get the nation’s finances back in order. Some of this extra funding will come from using the money we will no longer be contributing to the European Union after we have left, and as well as this, as a country we will have to contribute a bit more for the NHS in a fair and balanced way. 

 

 

 

Q: Is this money going to be enough to save the NHS?

This budget settlement will see the NHS budget growing more than twice as fast as the economy is forecast to grow, reflecting that the NHS is out top spending priority. We know that this funding offer is not all that some in the NHS would have wished for, but we have to think about the needs of other public services and how much it is fair to ask people to contribute.

 

Q: When will you provide more money for social care?

We recognise that the NHS and social care are closely linked, and neither can be looked at in isolation. We have already provided new funding for social care, and have reduced delayed discharges by over a third in the past year. Decisions on the future funding of social care will be made as part of wider local government arrangements, and we will be bringing forward a green paper on social care later this year.

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