NHS needs extra £8bn or long-term plan will fail, say hospital bosses

Ministers must spend an extra £8bn a year on health, on top of the NHS’s £20.5bn budget boost, or the service’s long-term plan will fail, according to hospital bosses and NHS experts warn.

Waiting times will keep getting worse, hospitals will remain overstretched and efforts to reduce ill-health will falter without a further major injection of cash, they claim in a new analysis.

The department of health and social care’s (DHSC) budget is due to rise to £155bn in 2023/24 as a result of the £20.5bn extra a year Theresa May promised last year to mark the NHS’s 70th birthday.

But the next prime minister will have to increase that to £163bn or the NHS long-term plan will not transform the service so that it can cope with the demands of the ageing and growing population, it is claimed.

The warning and plea for extra cash are contained in a new analysis by the Health Foundation thinktank published on Tuesday and endorsed by the NHS Confederation, which represents hospital bosses.

Despite May’s pledge, ministers must realise that NHS funding remains “unfinished business” if it is to expand and improve the care it provides, said Jennifer Dixon, chief executive of the Health Foundation.

It has identified three key areas – not covered by the £20.5bn, which applies only to NHS England’s budget – that will need more money to stave off the likelihood of failure.

Health Education England will need at least £900m extra a year to recruit and train health professionals to help tackle the NHS’s chronic staffing shortage. Despite that, the agency’s budget is being cut every year so the NHS can be given more money.

Capital spending – which hospitals use to build and renovate buildings, buy equipment such as scanners, and invest in IT – will require an extra £4.4bn, taking its budget up from £5.9bn to £10.3bn.

And public health will need £1.5bn more to help drive efforts to prevent illness and encourage healthier behaviours, which are central to the long-term plans’s chances.

In addition, social care will need its own separate boost of £4.4bn a year by 2023/24, otherwise older people’s inability to access it will continue to create more work for the NHS, they added.

In total, the two interlinked services will need to receive an estimated £12.4bn more than now between them by the end of March 2023 or the NHS’s ambitions will be stymied.

The other £1.2bn that makes up the £8bn would go on the budgets of the DHSC itself, the Care Quality Commission and NHS Blood and Transplant.

Dixon added: “There are mounting workforce shortages, the social care system is starved of funding, capital investment is going backwards, and public health funds cut.

“This all piles demand on the NHS and risks swallowing up the extra money and leaving far less to modernise care, reduce waiting times and prevent illness in the first place. How can any industry significantly boost productivity without investing in staff training, technology and kit?”

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that while many parts of the NHS were improving care, hospital bosses had “serious concerns”.

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“They face crippling staff vacancies, rising demand for care, lack of investment in buildings and equipment, and the drastic cuts to social care and public health that are fuelling extra demand on A&E and other frontline services.”

NHS leaders hope that the spending review that was expected to take place in the autumn will bring forward extra funds for all four areas. However, it is unclear whether the review will take place, given the political uncertainty related to Brexit and fact that there will be a new prime minister.

A DHSC spokesperson said: “The NHS long-term plan has been welcomed across the health system, backed by a record cash increase to the NHS budget. We are also providing an extra £3.9bn in dedicated adult social care funding this year and giving councils £3.5bn to fund public health services.”