Budget 2020: additional funding for NHS

In today's Budget, chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) increased NHS spending to support its response to Covid-19. Initially, there will be a £5bn fund to help the NHS and other public services respond to the virus outbreak.
However, the chancellor insisted that: ‘Whatever extra resources our NHS needs to cope with coronavirus – it will get. So, whether its research for a vaccine, recruiting thousands of returning staff, or supporting our brilliant doctors and nurses, whether its millions of pounds or billions of pounds, whatever it needs, whatever it costs, we stand behind our NHS.’

He added that, in addition to the extra £33.9bn promised to NHS England in the five-year funding settlement (up to and including 2023/24), another £6bn would be allocated over this Parliament. This would help meet Conservative manifesto promises, including the creation of 50 million more GP surgery appointments a year, meeting the commitment to 50,000 more nurses and the widening of free hospital car parking.

The additional GP surgery appointments will be achieved by training 6,000 more family doctors and 6,000 primary care professionals, such as physiotherapists and pharmacists, Budget documents said.

The documents show a £1.1bn increase in the 2020/21 NHS England capital allocation compared with the spending review documents from last September (£8.2bn compared with £7.1bn) The Budget said ‘operational capital’ would rise by £683m to allow trusts to invest in estates maintenance and refurbishment.

Measures to tackle the pension tax issue, which providers said was preventing some doctors from working extra shifts or taking promotions, would mean it is no longer an issue for the vast majority of hospital consultants and GPs (see Budget 2020: chancellor addresses pension taxation crisis).

Mr Sunak said he would increase the immigration health surcharge from £400 to £624, with discounted rates for children and students. Together with a freeze on the corporation tax rate and a clampdown on ‘aggressive tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance’, £4.4bn would be raised that could be spent on the NHS.

King’s Fund chief analyst Siva Anandaciva (pictured below) welcomed the extra funding to respond to the coronavirus. He added: ‘As the situation develops, the government will need to keep under review how much funding public services need.’

The additional £6bn would help deliver on some of the government’s manifesto commitments, but there was little detail on how it would boost recruitment and retention. He called for the NHS people plan to be published as soon as possible. He added that there was no detail on public health allocations and social care remained overlooked.

‘Adult social care remains a pressing and overlooked issue and, despite the prime minister’s election commitment to “fix it once and for all”, the pressures have only increased in recent months. It is hugely disappointing that this Budget does not include an emergency cash injection to help local government to address social care needs beyond coronavirus.’