Why should we believe Osborne on NHS funding?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to think we all have short attention spans.
He has announced that £22 billion of “savings” will be found in NHS England, and funding will rise from £101 billion to £120 billion by 2020-21.
The first announcement is nothing new; Tories have been after £22 billion in spending cuts for a considerable time.
As for the rise in funding – on the face of it, this would provide £41 billion for frontline healthcare, but This Writer’s problem is illustrated by the following graph:
At the time this graph was created, the Conservative-led government was demanded that we accept it was funding real-terms increases in funding of the NHS in England. As you can see, this was not even being managed in money terms.
In fact, if funding this year is £101 billion, then it has stood still since 2010 – and we all know that the NHS in England is in a deep crisis involving the care available for the funds being provided.
What should NHS funding be, in England today?
Is £120 billion likely to be enough by 2021?
And how much of that will be going to private firms as profit, rather than to UK citizens as medical care?
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‘Why should we believe Osborne on NHS funding?’
I’d believe Satan more!
Tweeted @melissacade68
The BMA on their poster campaign against privatisation stated that most for profit companies bidding for contracts in the NHS price would expect to make 20 percent profit. Please note that while I’m certain of the 20 percent figure, the exact details of what the figure is based upon is from memory of reading a lot of small print. None the less, it’s not that unlikely that almost all the extra money could go to private companies as profit.
The NHS has become, by necessity (constant under-funding) an extremely lean and efficient organisation. It has problems mostly relating to under-funding, e.g. agency nurses and its reliance on a massively under-funded local authority welfare sector leading to bed blocking and re-admissions, but there is no private sector organisation that I’m aware that does more for less than the NHS.
shaunt
Excellent points, well put.