06.12.12
Health spending to be protected from cuts
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement protected the health service budget, despite a Whitehall-wide spending cut of £5bn across other departments.
George Osborne also scrapped plans to introduce regional pay into the NHS.
A new form of private financing, PF2, could now be used to fund NHS capital projects, whilst allowing the public sector to have greater control of the spending.
NHS organisations have greeted the Statement with mixed feeling, and some have criticised the lack of comment on the Dilnot Commission on social care funding.
The NHS Confederation’s chief executive, Mike Farrar warned that despite the pledge not to reduce the healthcare budget, the NHS was still facing “immense financial pressures”.
On Dilnot, he said: “The long-term procrastination on social care funding will be further exacerbated by the short term reductions in local council funding from next year.
“The NHS and social care are two sides of the same coin and older people and their carers do not stop needing support just because the money isn’t there. We know that there is a real danger that when social care support decreases it has a knock on impact on the NHS.”
He welcomed PF2 but warned that any approach needs to “drive real savings not just tinker around the edges”.
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive & general secretary of the RCN, praised the Chancellor’s commitment to national pay arrangements and said: “We now hope that experiments such as South West pay consortium will come to a natural end.”
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Image: PA Wire