Responding to the Autumn Budget, Nuffield Trust Director of
Research and Policy Becks Fisher said:
“After over a decade of constrained funding, NHS finances prior
to this Budget were perilous. The funding promised today will
meet the health service's immediate day-to-day needs, but will
not stretch far towards the Government's ambitions to re-build an
ailing NHS.
“The increase in the overall
Department of Health and Social Care budget is sufficient to meet
the urgent £4.8bn funding gap facing the NHS in England. However, it is less clear how
non-NHS health spending, such as for public health, will fare
once those unavoidable immediate pressures in the NHS have been
addressed. The Secretary of State has been correct to caution
ahead of time that patients are unlikely to notice rapid
improvements in their care.
“Government is right
to want to shift care from hospital to
community, but with most funding released today seemingly
targeted towards hospitals, eyes will turn to the Spending Review
to secure money needed for
transformation. “Increases in local
authority budgets are welcome, but they face hugely difficult
decisions on where to spend to meet myriad local needs. The £600m
social care grant announced for next year will be insufficient to
enable councils to keep pace with demand.
“Changes to the carers' allowance are
a positive development. But while the national minimum wage and
living wage increases will benefit much-valued care staff, they
will put buckling council and provider budgets under pressure. On
top of this, higher national insurance rates will pile still more
costs onto organisations which provide care, many of which are
already struggling. With no specific support to cover these
costs, care providers are likely to face financial collapse, or
difficult choices to pass higher costs on to people who pay for
their own care.
“It is disappointing that today's
budget does little to stabilise the beleaguered social care
sector in the immediate term, and that the supporting rhetoric
made no mention at all of the future reform it so desperately
needs.”
