Responding to announcements made by the chancellor in the
multi-year spending review and Budget today, the deputy
chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery
said:
“NHS trust leaders will welcome the confirmed extra £5.9 billion
capital spending on NHS buildings, equipment and digital
technology over the next three years. NHS Providers has
campaigned hard for a multi-year increase in these budgets and we
are pleased our campaign has borne fruit.
“However there are still significant questions on whether the NHS
will be able to meet the government’s manifesto pledge to upgrade
70 hospitals and build 40 new ones given the lack of clear, long
term, funding commitments beyond 2024/25. And we await
confirmation of the money that will be available to providers to
tackle the £9.2 billion maintenance backlog that has built up.
“Trust leaders will be disappointed and frustrated that there is
no confirmed multi-year, increase in Health Education England’s
NHS education and training budget. Workforce shortages and the
resulting unsustainable workload on existing NHS staff are
currently the health service’s biggest problem. They can only be
tackled with a robust long term workforce plan and increased
longer term investment in workforce expansion, education and
training, none of which are currently in place.
“NHS leaders know that NHS services and local government care and
public health services are totally interdependent – they cannot
succeed without each other. Trust leaders will therefore be
concerned about the impact of the long term financial squeeze on
both these areas, and local government funding more generally.
While additional resources for councils announced today are
welcome, the lack of specific social care investment means there
is still a long way to go to create the sustainable social care
system we all need.
“NHS leaders recognise and welcome the significant extra revenue
and capital funding the government has now provided to the
service. They are deeply committed to delivering better care and
improving health outcomes for this new investment.
“But they are also clear that the NHS faces an enormous challenge
to maintain quality of care given the longest and deepest
financial squeeze in NHS history between 2010 and 2019, the NHS’
resulting inability to grow its capacity to meet growing demand,
persistent workforce shortages and the fragility of social care.
These long standing fault lines have been significantly
exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 and they cannot be
addressed overnight”.
