Families should prepare to pay more in tax to fund the NHS, former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned today.
The one-time Tory leadership hopeful believed households would be forced to cough up more to pay for healthcare.
“We are all going to have to spend more on our healthcare, it’s the thing that matters to us most of all,” Mr Hunt, who chairs the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee, told the Institute for Government think tank.
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“If you’re in America you’re going to spend more through your private insurance premiums; if you’re in Germany or the Netherlands you’re going to spend more through your social insurance premiums; if you’re in Britain, Ireland or New Zealand you’re going to spend more through your taxes.
“I think that it doesn’t really matter where you are, that’s a fact of life and the NHS will continue to need more.”
Outlining why he believed extra funding would be needed, he went on: “We are living for longer, we have got fantastic new medicines - I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next five years we have a cure for dementia, or at least something that stops symptoms deteriorating.
“That would be a fantastic advance for humanity and a nightmare for the person in charge of the NHS drugs budget.
According to the King's Fund health think tank, planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in England was £190.3 billion for 2021/22.
The Fund said: “The majority of the Department's spending (£136.1bn in 2021/22) is passed to NHS England and NHS Improvement for spending on health services.”
Mr Hunt said he pressed hard for extra cash on being appointed in September 2012, having been Culture Secretary from 2010.
“I didn’t think the NHS had enough money when I was Health Secretary, which was why I spent a lot of time lobbying for it, and I was successful in getting a big increase,” he said.
“I wasn’t successful in getting a big increase for the social care budget - I still think it needs it so that’s very much unfinished business.”
Mr Hunt has refused to rule out a fresh Tory leadership bid, having been beaten to the party crown by Boris Johnson in 2019.
