NHS England is likely to remain on a “crisis footing” with rising waiting lists despite extra funding, it has been said. The health service will receive an extra £3.3 billion in each of the next two years, while £4.7bn will go into social care, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced in his autumn statement on Thursday.
However, the Health Foundation believes while the increase to the NHS budget will provide “temporary respite”, health and care services will face “difficult trade-offs” on issues such as pay and the backlog. Its analysis found the increase to spending over the next two years amounts to 2% each year in “real terms”. The annual increase for the next two years is 1.2% in real terms “which is below the average” seen in the decade preceding the pandemic (2%), as well as the historical average of around 3.8%, the analysis indicated.
Anita Charlesworth, director of the Health Foundation, said: “Thursday’s statement offered short-term relief, especially compared with other public services. But the reality is that the NHS is going to be treading water at best, as inflation bites and it faces rising pressures from an ageing population, pay, addressing the backlog, and ongoing Covid costs.
