NHS cash injection will ‘bring waiting lists down’ – Chancellor

A funding boost for the NHS will help get waiting lists back to a maximum of 18 weeks, the Chancellor has said.

Rachel Reeves said a £22.6 billion increase in the day-to-day health budget was a “down payment” on the Government’s forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS.

Meanwhile, news of a “record” £3.1 billion boost to capital funds was welcomed by NHS bosses, who said the money would help “repair and modernise hospitals, GP practices and other facilities” as well as boost technology in the service.

Ms Reeves said that boost to the NHS would help to bring waiting lists down and will help meet Labour’s ambition to ensure no patient waits longer than 18 weeks for treatment.

But one leading health think tank warned that the additional funds are “unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive”.

Currently, the waiting list stands at 7.6 million treatments.

Latest performance figures for the NHS in England show that 282,664 people had been waiting more than a year to start routine hospital treatment at the end of August.

Ms Reeves said the NHS was the nation’s “most cherished public service” but she highlighted the “damning” findings of the Darzi review into the health service which concluded that the NHS is “in serious trouble”.

“Today, because of the difficult decision that I have taken on tax, welfare and spending, I can announce that I am providing a £22.6 billion increase in the day-to-day health budget, and a £3.1 billion increase in the capital budget, over this year and next year,” she said.

“This is the largest real-terms growth in day-to-day NHS spending outside of Covid since 2010.”

Budget documents claim the increase to the capital budget “provide record levels of capital investment for health”.

Ms Reeves continued: “Because of this record injection of funding, because of the thousands of additional beds that we have secured, and because of the reforms that we are delivering in our NHS, we can now begin to bring waiting lists down more quickly and move towards our target for waiting times to be no longer than 18 weeks by delivering on our manifesto commitment for 40,000 extra hospital appointments a week.”

Ms Reeves said the money would increase capacity for more procedures and diagnostic tests and will lead to more beds in hospitals as well as new surgical hubs and diagnostic centres.

It will also include £1 billion of capital investment to “address the backlog of repairs and upgrades across our NHS”.

Data from NHS Digital show that the total “maintenance backlog” for the health service in England currently stands at £13.8 billion – this is the amount needed to restore a building to a certain state of repair.

The Chancellor announced in July that all projects within the New Hospitals Programme promised by the previous Conservative government would be placed under a spending review.

Addressing the issue on Wednesday, she said Health Secretary Wes Streeting would set out “further details of his review into the New Hospital Programme in the coming weeks, and publishing in the new year”.

She added: “But I can tell the House today that work will continue at pace to deliver those seven hospitals affected by the Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) crisis, including West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds and Leighton Hospital in Crewe.”

The lightweight concrete was used in public buildings including schools and hospitals between the 1950s and 1990s, but is less durable than more traditional materials and has started to deteriorate.

NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard said: “We welcome the Chancellor’s decision to prioritise the NHS with record levels of capital investment, which will help us repair and modernise hospitals, GP practices and other facilities, as well as continuing to roll out technology and other reforms which will boost productivity for the benefit of patients and the taxpayer in the long term.”

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive at NHS Providers, said: “Vital bits of the NHS are literally falling apart, putting quality of care and sometimes the safety of patients and staff at risk.

“Trusts in the New Hospital Programme (NHP) continue to wait for clarity on the funding and delivery timeline for their new buildings. The maintenance backlog in trusts with NHP schemes is nearly £5.7 billion – more than 40% of the total.”

Commenting on the health spending announcements, Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund think tank, said: “The health spending announced today is unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive.

“The 3.8% real-terms uplift over two years to the Department of Health and Social Care budget will help sustain services but is unlikely to drastically improve care over the rest of this year, and certainly not overnight.”

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, added: “The funding announced today has a lot to do – it will need to cover recently agreed pay deals for resident doctors and other NHS staff, meet growing demand, recover performance against key targets and transform the way local services are delivered.

“There will also be some big challenges ahead across mental health and community services, primary care in particular, especially as we approach winter.”

Meanwhile, at least £600 million in new grant funding to local authorities for the provision of social care has been welcomed within the sector, but is likely to be “wiped off instantly” by the rise in national insurance and pay increases, a care group said.

The funding – which organisations in the sector said is believed to be for both adult and children’s social care – is likely to end up having “little or no impact”, the Independent Care Group said.

Meanwhile Care England, representing providers across the country, said the £600 million “fails to come close to bridging the gap”.

Age UK said it hoped the social care funding would “help keep fragile provision from completely falling over” but added that splitting the sum between both adult and children’s care would mean “it will not go very far”.