The NHS will receive an extra £5.4 billion over the next six
months to support its response to COVID-19 and help tackle
waiting lists, the Prime Minister and Health and Social Care
Secretary have
announced today.
The funding will immediately go towards supporting the NHS to
manage the immediate pressures of the pandemic. This includes an
extra £1 billion to help tackle the COVID-19 backlog, £2.8
billion to cover related costs such as enhanced infection control
measures to keep staff and patients safe from the virus and £478
million to continue the hospital discharge programme, freeing up
beds.
The additional £5.4 billion brings the government’s total
investment to health services for COVID-19 so far this year to
over £34 billion, with £2 billion in total for the NHS to tackle
the elective backlog.
Prime Minister said:
“The NHS was there for us during the pandemic - but treating
Covid patients has created huge backlogs.
“This funding will go straight to the frontline, to provide more
patients with the treatments they need but aren’t getting quickly
enough.
“We will continue to make sure our NHS has what it needs to bust
the Covid backlogs and help the health service build back better
from the worst pandemic in a century.”
Health and Social Care Secretary
said:
“The NHS has been phenomenal as it has faced one of the biggest
challenges in its history.
“Today’s additional £5.4 billion funding over the next 6 months
is critical to ensuring the health service has what it needs to
manage the ongoing pandemic and helping to tackle waiting lists.
“We know waiting lists will get worse before they get better as
people come forward for help, and I want to reassure you the NHS
is open, and we are doing what we can to support the NHS to
deliver routine operations and treatment to patients across the
country.”
Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said:
“This funding provides welcome certainty for the NHS, which has
pulled out all the stops to restore services, while caring for
thousands of seriously ill Covid patients requiring hospital
treatment during the toughest summer on record.
“This additional investment will enable the NHS to deliver more
checks, scans and procedures as well as helping to deal with the
ongoing costs and pressures of the pandemic as the NHS heads in
to winter.”
The government has been clear that the NHS will get what it needs
to recover its usual services and deliver quality care to
patients.
The waiting list for routine operations and treatments such as
hip replacements and eye cataract surgery could potentially
increase to as high as 13 million. While today’s extra £1 billion
funding will go some way to help reduce this number, waiting
lists will rise before they improve as more people who didn’t
seek care over the pandemic come forward.
£478 million of this new funding has been dedicated to continue
the hospital discharge programme so staff can ensure patients
leave hospital as quickly and as safely as possible, with the
right community or at-home support. This will free up thousands
of extra beds and staff time to help the NHS recover services.
The government has also invested £500 million in capital funding
for extra theatre capacity and productivity-boosting technology,
to increase the number of surgeries able to take place.
This funding is for England only. The devolved administrations
will receive up to £1 billion in Barnett consequentials in
2021-22. The final amount will be confirmed and allocated at
Supplementary Estimates 2021-22.
On top of this funding, the NHS recently launched a £160 million
initiative to tackle waiting lists. This is looking to accelerate
the recovery of routine treatments and operations by trialling
new ways of working, including a high-volume cataract service,
one stop testing facilities where people can get tests done
quickly and efficiently, to speed up the time to treatment,
greater access to specialist advice for GPs and pop-up clinics so
patients can be seen and discharged closer to home.
This government is committed to delivering the greatest hospital
building programme in a generation with 40 new hospitals by 2030,
backed by an initial £3.7 billion.
Today’s announcement is in addition to the £3 billion announced
at Spending Review 2020 to support the NHS. It is also additional
to the historic long-term settlement for the NHS, which is
enshrined in law and will see NHS funding increase by £33.9
billion by 2023 to 2024 as part of the NHS Long Term
Plan.
The government will continue to support the NHS respond to
COVID-19. The government made available £63 billion in 2020 to
2021 and over £34 billion so far this year to support health
services, and increased the NHS core non-COVID budget from £130
billion to £136 billion.
Notes to editors
The £5.4 billion funding is broken down into:
- £2.8 billion for COVID-19 costs including infection control
measures;
- £600 million for day-to-day costs;
- £478 million for enhanced hospital discharge; and
- £1.5 billion for elective recovery, including £500 million
capital funding.
