The Budget’s tax hikes and borrowing increases may not be enough to undo “14 years of damage” to the NHS, Rachel Reeves has warned.
The Chancellor is expected to pump billions of pounds into the health service, including £1.5 billion for new surgical hubs and scanners and £70 million for radiotherapy machines.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said although Ms Reeves is prioritising the NHS, a single Budget will not turn it around.
He said the injection of funding will help meet Labour’s pledge to deliver two million extra NHS appointments a year.
An additional £1.8 billion has been allocated for elective appointments since July and the Treasury indicated “billions of pounds” will be invested in technology to help boost productivity across the health service.
Asked if the Budget will “fix the NHS”, Ms Reeves said: “I don’t think in one Budget you can undo 14 years of damage, but in this Budget we’re going to provide the resource necessary to deliver on our manifesto commitment to 40,000 additional appointments every single week, to reduce the huge backlog and as well as the increase in the capital budget to take it to its highest level since 2010 to invest in the new scanners and the radiography equipment.”
Speaking to reporters at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, she said productivity is being hampered because staff are using equipment purchased under the last Labour government which should have been replaced.
She said she is “putting an end to the neglect and underinvestment” the NHS has seen.
“We will be known as the Government that took the NHS from its worst crisis in its history, got it back on its feet again and made it fit for the bright future ahead of it,” she said.
Ms Reeves will use her Budget speech on Wednesday to make “difficult decisions on spending, on welfare and taxation” and change the way national debt is measured to give her more flexibility to borrow.
She said: “By making those decisions and putting our public finances and our public services on a firmer footing, we can wipe the slate clean after 14 years of chaos and instability under the last government, and do the things that are necessary to get our public services and public finances on a firmer footing, at the same time doing everything they can to protect living standards, to begin to fix the problems in the NHS and to rebuild the foundations of our country.”
On a joint visit with Ms Reeves, Mr Streeting said the extra money might not prevent avoidable deaths and another winter crisis over the coming months.
“I can’t promise that there won’t be people waiting on trolleys and corridors this winter,” he said. “There are people in that position already today.
“We will start planning for next winter, this winter, to make sure we see continued, steady improvement in our NHS.
“What this Budget will enable us to do is arrest the decline in the NHS and start fixing the foundation so we can not only get the NHS back on its feet, but make sure it’s fit for the future as part of our long-term plan.
“I can’t pretend that we’re going to be able to wave a Labour magic wand and make all of those problems go away this winter. There will still be real problems this winter, but we’re not going to deny the scale of the problems, and we are already supporting system leaders, particularly in places that tend to have the most challenge at winter, to try and minimise the risk this winter.”
Asked if the Budget will reduce the level of avoidable deaths in the NHS, Mr Streeting said: “I think 14 years of Conservative failure have kind of led us to the worst crisis in the NHS history, and have broken that fundamental promise that the NHS will be there for people when they need it. That is not the case, universally across the board today.
“It will take time to turn the situation around, but for this winter, in fact, throughout the year, my number one priority will always be patient safety and taking the steps needed to keep people as safe as possible, and also to make sure that for as long as we have people on trolleys in corridors, that we’re taking steps to protect people’s dignity and to provide the best possible support.”
Mr Streeting suggested greater use of modern technology and artificial intelligence could improve productivity, rather than simply relying on extra staff.
“One of the great opportunities for the NHS available to this Government that wasn’t so available to the last Labour government are the breakthroughs we’re seeing in medical science and technology,” he said. “So we can have not just more scanners, but AI-enabled scanners that also achieve big productivity gains through the numbers of staff required.”
Mr Streeting said it will take time and reforms as well as cash to turn the NHS around.
“I think people are realistic,” he told GB News. “They know that we’re not going to turn the NHS around in just a few months or in a single Budget.
“It’s going to take time and that’s why the Chancellor is prioritising the NHS in her Budget.
“We are linking that investment also to reform, because everything I said in opposition about waste and inefficiency in the NHS, the need to improve productivity, and we can’t keep on pouring more money in without reform – all of those things stand.”
The Health Secretary would not be drawn on whether investment into social care will be announced in the Budget.
Asked if a lack of such an announcement will affect the performance of the NHS, Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There’s no answer to the NHS that doesn’t involve social care and dealing with delayed discharges.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We delivered record funding, overhauled productivity and delivered the first NHS Long Term Workforce Plan to support the health service recover from the pandemic and respond to a growing and ageing population.
“If Labour are serious about ensuring the NHS delivers for patients, they must continue this reform instead of holding yet further consultations. The Health Secretary promised no more money without reform – but where is it?”
Meanwhile, media reports suggested Wednesday’s Budget could also bring a 6% increase in the minimum wage, with a larger increase for younger people.
Changes to the minimum wage would follow the new Government’s instruction to the Low Pay Commission, which recommends minimum wage rates, to include the cost of living in its calculations.
A 6% increase would bring the minimum wage for people aged 21 and older to around £12.12 per hour, in line with the commission’s forecast last year.
The minimum wage rose by more than 9% per year in 2023 and 2024 against a background of high inflation in an effort to meet the previous government’s target of raising rates to two-thirds of median earnings, a target which was met this year.
Meanwhile, quizzed on fears that children with special educational needs but without an official statement of their status could be priced out of attending private schools by Labour plans to apply VAT, Mr Streeting said: “They (private schools) have hyped up their fees with inflation-busting increases for well over a decade and I’m sure they can take steps to mitigate against children being forced to drop out.”
The Health Secretary also said that disclosing parts of the Budget ahead of time is necessary to avoid taking the markets by surprise.
It was important that the Chancellor explained big reforms to the economy when she was in Washington last week to “make sure that this Budget lands in the right context with the financial markets”, he told Times Radio.
