- The NHS faces its first funding cut per head of population since the 1990s
- First time service has received such a reduction since turn of the century
- Yet Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted he would not accept rationing of care
Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail
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The NHS faces its first funding cut per head of population since the 1990s despite growing pressures, its chief executive warned last night.
Simon Stevens said funding would drop in 2018-19, making it the ‘most pressurised year’ in recent history.
It will be the first time the Health Service has received such a reduction since at least the turn of the century, NHS sources said.
Simon Stevens said funding would drop in 2018-19, making it the ‘most pressurised year’ in recent history
Yet Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted he would not accept rationing of care by local health boards – stressing that hospitals could do more for less.
Prime Minister Theresa May is not expected to provide any additional funding in next month’s Autumn Statement.
NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, has warned patients will no longer receive the services they expect without more cash.
The NHS is currently in the grip of the worst bed-blocking crisis since records began, with thousands of patients languishing in hospital.
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Wards are overcrowded and sick patients are having to stay on trolleys in AE as there are no free beds, with waiting times soaring.
Mr Stevens told the Commons health select committee he had not received the full funding he had requested from the Government for his five-year NHS transformation plan.
For the current year, 2016-17, the NHS is receiving the ‘kick-start’ requested – an extra £3.8billion, equivalent to a 3.7 per cent rise.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted he would not accept rationing of care by local health boards
But next year the NHS will receive only an extra 1.3 per cent and in 2018-19 only 0.4 per cent. With the population in England growing by 0.6 per cent every year, an annual 0.4 per cent increase equates to less per head of population.
Mr Stevens told the committee: ‘Given we have an ageing and growing population, if you just look at population growth, even before you look at ageing, 2018-19 will be the most pressurised year for us, where we will actually have negative per-person NHS funding growth in England.
‘But the other years we will have very modest increases.’
He added: ‘For this year – year one of the spending review – we did indeed get the kickstart to the funding that we were looking for, which we needed because we had to absorb nearly £1billion of extra pension costs.
‘We are going to cut the hospital deficit by more than two thirds, we are going to bring some stability to parts of the Health Service that are under pressure and we are going to make some modest starts to improvements.’
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s health spokesman, said: ‘Theresa May needs to stop ignoring the warnings from NHS bosses and start taking action to address the cash crisis facing the Health Service.’
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