Budget confirms £8bn NHS spending boost

8 Jul 15
The National Health Service is to get an extra £8bn in funding, chancellor George Osborne said in his Budget speech.

He said this would pay for the NHS Five Year Forward View sometimes known as the Stevens Plan after NHS England chief Simon Stevens – which “outlines a plan for a more sustainable, integrated health service that cares for people closer to home”.

The extra money will be paid by 2020 and is additional to the further £2bn announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement.

But the Forward View also requires the NHS to find £22bn in efficiency savings by 2020, which the Budget statement said would come through improvements to care quality and staff productivity and better procurement.

It also reiterated the government’s goal of running the NHS as a seven-day NHS 2020, with hospitals staffed at weekends and general practitioners available from 8am–8pm each day.

Osborne said: “Our priority is the National Health Service. We will fund fully the plan the NHS has itself produced for its future – the Stevens Plan.

“That plan requires very challenging efficiency savings across the health service – which must be found. But it also requires additional government funding.”

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top