Jeremy Hunt has lied about NHS budget increase
![Analysis suggests budget increase is only 28th-biggest in recent NHS history, despite claims by Jeremy Hunt [Image: Neil Hall/PA].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/160512-Hunt.png)
Analysis suggests budget increase is only 28th-biggest in recent NHS history, despite claims by Jeremy Hunt [Image: Neil Hall/PA].
So Jeremy Hunt’s claim that a forthcoming funding increase is the sixth-largest in NHS history is wrong. In fact it is only the 28th-largest in the last 41 years.
Only 13 have been smaller and, on the Tories’ recent record, This Writer wouldn’t be surprised if five of them took place since 2010.
Note also that four of the five biggest increases actually took place under Labour governments.
And oh, look – not only is the Department of Health putting £2 billion less into the service than it is claiming, but it is also lying about that, even when faced with the proof.
Britain’s leading health thinktank has accused Jeremy Hunt of misleading voters by wrongly claiming that the budget increase ministers have given the NHS this year is one of the most generous ever.
The King’s Fund has rejected the health secretary’s claim that the NHS is receiving “the sixth-biggest increase in its history” as inaccurate and a misrepresentation of the service’s perilous financial position.
After analysing the last 41 years of funding data in their research, Prof John Appleby, the fund’s chief economist, and Adam Roberts, of the Health Foundation, found that the NHS real-spend increase of 1.6% is the 28th-largest increase since 1975-76.
The largest year-on-year increase, of 12%, came in 2002-03, while Tony Blair’s Labour government was in office. Using data obtained from the House of Commons library, the five biggest increases since 1975-76 have all been of at least 9%. Four of those came during Blair’s premiership.
The researchers also said it was impossible to compare this year’s extra money to the period between the NHS’s creation in 1948 and 1975-76 as no reliable data for then existed.
In a blog on the King’s Fund website, Appleby and Roberts also dispute ministers’ often-repeated claim that they are giving the NHS in England an extra £3.8bn this year. The true amount is only £1.8bn, they say.
A DH spokesperson said: “We are absolutely committed to the NHS which is why we are investing £10bn directly into the service, including almost £4 billion upfront this year – and crucially, that is at a time that other government departments are facing significant reductions in their budgets. As this research shows, there are a number of ways of analysing funding and comparing spending across years – our calculation is based on a commonsense methodology.”
Source: Jeremy Hunt misleading voters over NHS budget increase, says thinktank | Society | The Guardian
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Quite apart from this loathsome, sneering, caricature tory’s risible record of lies, I’d like to point out, just for a laugh really, that he’s the spitting image of Red Dwarf’s Arnold J Rimmer – another loathsome, sneering caricature of a man. To be fair to him, Rimmer might be difficult to like but he at least has the advantage of being fictional and not part of the very real threat to our health and security that this current clique of Dickensian fetishists have repeatedly shown themselves to be.
Common sense methodology that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Just like the common sense methodology that ‘proved’ the weekend effect and is now totally discredited.
Didn’t most of the budget for the ‘top down re-organisation’ also come out of the NHS budget. This would certainly prove expensive for the NHS. we can all see how it has been scripted to fall short of expectations.
Many instances of Tory MP’s being called liars occur on these social media blogs, why on earth are non of them ever challenged by the accused?
Because, in cases like this, the proof is there for all to see?