Queen's Speech 2022 - Health and Social Care Funding

Health and Social Care Funding

• ●  From April 2022, the Health and Social Care Levy has come into effect. This necessary, fair and responsible levy will tackle the COVID-19 backlogs, reducing waiting times and delivering millions more scans, tests and operations, while reforming the way routine services are delivered so the NHS is fit for the future.

• ●  The new Health and Social Care Levy, along with an increase to the rates of dividend tax, will raise around £13 billion per year for spending on health and social care across the UK. Funding from the Levy, on top of the historic long-term NHS settlement announced in 2018, means that the NHS resource budget in England will increase to £162.6 billion in 2024-25, up from £123.7 billion in 2019- 20. This includes over £8 billion the government plans to spend over the next three years to tackle the elective backlog. The Government has also committed to a £5.9 billion investment in NHS capital over three years, to provide new beds, equipment and technology.

• ●  We will build 40 new hospitals by 2030 and upgrade more than 70 further hospitals.

• ●  We are transforming diagnostic services with new Community Diagnostic Centres to deliver extra checks and scans providing new surgical hubs, increasing bed capacity, and new equipment. The settlement will also support NHS Trusts to invest in local priorities, including maintenance of their estate.

• ●  The funding will deliver further advances in digitalising our frontline NHS and enabling better digital interactions for patients.

  Key facts

• ●  Health and care services have spent £43 billion on additional revenue costs related to COVID-19 in 2020-21.

• ●  In 2021-22, £39 billion of resource funding has been provided for COVID-19 in 2021-22. This included:

o £16 billion for Test and Trace;
o £13.7 billion for the NHS, including funding to support the NHS’s recovery

from the impact of COVID-19 and tackle the elective backlog; o £2.7 billion for the Vaccine Deployment Programme;
o £2.3 billion for the Vaccine Taskforce;

o £2.4 billion to continue to maintain and distribute stocks of personal protective equipment;

o £1.1 billion for COVID-19 Grants;
o £440 million for medicines and therapeutics; and o £329 million for Managed Quarantine Services.

Elective Recovery

• ●  Our nurses, doctors and care workers have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, treating over half a million patients, administering more than 140 million vaccines and saving over a hundred thousand lives. But the pandemic has taken its toll and waiting times are longer than ever before.

• ●  At the start of the pandemic there was a need for a temporary postponement of all non-urgent elective operations, to prevent the overwhelming of NHS services and free up 30,000 beds. Today, over six million people in England are currently waiting for routine tests, operations and procedures. We know that waiting lists will rise before they fall again because we want to ensure the ‘missing demand’ lost during the pandemic returns and that people receive the care they need. We are aware that over ten million people who otherwise would have come forward did not do so over the pandemic

• ●  The new Health and Social Care Levy, along with an increase to the rates of dividend tax, will raise around £13 billion per year for spending on health and social care across the UK. And we must make sure that every penny is well spent so that, between community pop up clinics, more face-to-face GP appointments, new cancer screening machines, and a hugely expanded mental health provision, the NHS can maximise its ability to check and treat patients.

• ●  The plan to clear the backlogs commits the NHS to deliver 17 million more diagnostic tests over the next three years and to increase our annual capacity by nine million additional treatments and diagnostic procedures. In addition the NHS will aim to deliver around 30 per cent more elective activity than it was doing before the pandemic by 2024-25.

• ●  The plan provides further commitments from the NHS:

  o a reduction in maximum waiting times, so that waits of longer than a year for elective care are eliminated by March 2025 except for a limited number of specific cases. Within this, no one will wait longer than two years by July 2022, or longer than 65 weeks by March 2024;

  o diagnostic tests are a key part of many elective care pathways. By March 2025, 95 per cent of patients needing a diagnostic test receive will receive it within six weeks; and

  o by March 2023 we will return the number of people waiting more than 62 days to start treatment after being urgently referred due to suspected cancer back to pre-pandemic levels. By the following year, 75 per cent of patients who have been urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer symptoms will have been diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.

Key facts

• ●  To support recovery of elective services, the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, supported by the revenue from the Health and Social Care Levy. This is in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available last year to help drive up and protect elective activity.

• ●  We plan to spend £8 billion to deliver 30 per cent more elective activity by 2024- 25 than before the pandemic.

• ●  The Government has also committed to a £5.9 billion investment in capital, for new beds, equipment and technology:

o £1.5 billion towards elective recovery services, to include new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment to help elective services recover, including surgeries and other medical procedures;

o £2.1 billion to modernise digital technology on the frontline, improve cyber security and the NHS’s use of data and redesign care pathways; and

o £2.3 billion to help increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times with ambitions to roll out at least 100 community diagnostic centres over the next three years to help clear backlogs of people waiting for tests, such as MRI, ultrasound and CT scans.

• ●  In December 2021 and January 2022 NHS staff completed over 2.4 million operations and other elective care while also providing treatment to nearly 135,000 COVID-19 patients in England.

• ●  In January 2022, 75 per cent of patients saw a cancer specialist within two weeks following a referral from their GP and 89.6 per cent of patients received treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat.

Delivering Healthcare Priorities

• ●  Alongside the remarkable effort of recovery the Government continues to deliver on the people’s priorities for healthcare.

• ●  There are over 30,000 more nurses working in the NHS now compared to September 2019, putting us over halfway towards meeting the 50,000 nurse commitment by March 2024.

• ●  We are delivering on our manifesto commitment to build 40 new hospitals.

• ●  We are investing £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments through growing and diversifying the GP workforce. We are working with NHS England, Health Education England and the profession to increase the GP workforce in England by boosting recruitment, addressing the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encouraging them to return to practice. Furthermore, the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme enables Primary Care Networks to recruit a wide range of additional clinical roles for full reimbursement of salary and on-costs.

  Key facts

• ●  GP appointment numbers are now above pre-pandemic levels. Excluding COVID-19 vaccinations appointments, in March 2022 there were 1.29 million average appointments per working day compared to 1.19 million in March 2020, an increase of 8.6 per cent.

• ●  In the twelve months up to January 2022, excluding COVID-19 vaccination appointments, an estimated 315 million appointments were booked across all general practices in England. This is an increase of three million compared to the twelve months up to January 2020 (312 million appointments).

• ●  Excluding COVID-19 vaccination appointments, an estimated 319.8 million appointments were booked across all general practices in England in the twelve months up to March 2022. Compared to the twelve months up to March 2020 (310.3 million) this is an increase of 3.1 per cent.

• ●  There were 1,462 more full-time equivalent doctors in general practice in March 2022 compared to March 2019. Additionally, there were 13,800 additional staff recruited towards the 26,000 in the same period, covering a range of roles, for example clinical pharmacists.

• ●  There are currently record numbers of staff working in NHS hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups in the NHS. This includes record numbers of nurses and doctors. Over the past year we have seen almost 4,300 more doctors and over 11,800 more nurses.

● The Government has committed to build 40 new hospitals by 2030, backed by an initial £3.7 billion. Together with eight previously announced schemes, this will mean 48 hospitals delivered by the end of the decade, the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. The first of the 48 hospitals opened for patients last year and a further six are in construction. The new hospitals will transform the way we deliver healthcare infrastructure for the NHS, prioritising sustainability, digital technology and the latest construction methods.

Social Care and integration

• ●  We are reforming adult social care, an issue successive governments have failed to address.

• ●  From October 2023, we will end unpredictable costs by placing a £86,000 limit on the amount people anyone in England will have to spend on their personal care cost over their lifetime. The new cap will end the pain of unlimited care costs so that more people can preserve their savings and assets and pass something on to their loved ones.

• ●  We are also significantly expanding the means test from October 2023 in order to better protect those with lower levels of wealth. The means test is the best way to help make care affordable for people with lower assets. People with less than £100,000 of savings will be eligible for help from the state, and everyone will keep at least £20,000 of their assets. This is more than four times the current limit of £23,250, and more generous than what was proposed in 2015. Someone's house will also not be taken into consideration in this financial assessment if they, or an eligible family member such as a spouse is living in it.

• ●  In addition, our Adult Social Care White Paper sets out a 10-year vision for adult social care and our plans to invest £1.7 billion over the next three years for reform of the system. Through this, we are helping people live independent lives in their homes for longer through greater choice and support; we are improving quality of care; and we are boosting the career prospects of our social care workforce.

• ●  Implementation of the Government’s Integration White Paper will ensure patients receive better, more joined-up care. Building on the Health and Care Act 2022, it will bring the NHS and local government closer together to join up health and social care services through the design of a shared outcomes framework, with a single accountable person who will be responsible for the delivery of these shared outcomes including shared health and care plans for people locally. It also sets out the actions the Government will take, working with key partners, to make progress across the key enablers of integration including workforce, data and technology, financial pooling and alignment, oversight and leadership to make integrated health and social care a reality for everyone across England.

  Key facts

• ●  In September 2021 the Government announced £5.4 billion for adult social care reform. This includes reforming the social care charging system to protect people in England from unlimited and unpredictable care costs.

• ●  In December 2021, the Government published its adult social care reform white paper ‘People at the Heart of Care’, which set out a 10-year vision for investment in the social care system, including a £500 million investment in the social care workforce, at least £300 million to integrate housing into local health and care strategies, and at least £150 million to improve technology and increase digitisation across social care.

• ●  Better Care Fund budgets reflect the cooperation between health and social care partners. In 2021-22, voluntary contributions totalled £3 billion in addition to the nationally mandated minimum, double the figure from 2015-16.

• ●  In 2019-20, 95 per cent of local areas agreed that joint working had improved as a result of the Better Care Fund. Local areas committed £9.9 billion to the Fund in 2021-22.

Spring COVID Booster Programme

• ●  Millions of people are now being invited to receive a Spring COVID-19 booster following advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation for an additional dose for the most vulnerable individuals in the population.

• ●  Eligible groups include those aged 75 and over, residents of older adult care homes, and those aged 12 and over who are immunosuppressed. The NHS continues to offer first, second and third doses for those who are yet to come forward for one.

• ●  The NHS vaccination programme has been the biggest and fastest in health service history. It has saved over a hundred thousand lives, reduced hospital admissions and built a wall of defence which has allowed us to learn to live with COVID-19.

  Key facts

• ●  Over 140 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered in the UK.

• ●  92.5 per cent of people in the UK have received a first dose, 86.5 per cent have

  received a second dose and 68.3 per cent have received a booster or third dose.

• ●  Between 21 March and 4 May 2022, over 2.8 million spring booster doses have been administered in England.

• ●  Based on the direct effect of the booster vaccination and booster vaccine coverage rates, the UK Health Security Agency estimates that around 186,600 hospitalisations have been prevented in those aged 25 years and over in England from 13 December 2021 to 17 April 2022.