“Thank you for contacting me about supporting the NHS.
The Government is providing historic funding for the NHS, and is committed to investing in our health and public services properly. The NHS is being supported to tackle the elective backlog, deliver its Long Term Plan and ensure it has the resources needed to recover from the impact of Covid-19. Despite difficult financial circumstances, NHS investment has increased every year since 2010.
The Chancellor made a number of spending commitments at the Autumn Statement 2022, making available £8 billion of funding for the NHS and adult social care in England in 2024-25. As part of this, the Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in 2023-24 and 2024-25 to support the NHS in England.
This resulted in a total NHS budget of £162.5 billion for 2024-25 in England, 45 per cent higher than 2018-19 in cash terms. This will enable rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance. This will happen alongside the introduction of reforms to support the workforce and improve performance across the health system over the longer term.
The Government will also make available up to £4.7 billion in 2024-25 to put the adult social care system in England on a stronger financial footing and improve the quality of and access to care for many of the most vulnerable in our society. In addition, Our Plan for Patients put £500 million specifically into delayed discharge in 2022, with a further £600 million in 2023, and £1 billion in 2024. This money will directly support discharges from hospitals into the community to support the NHS.
The Government has published its Urgent and Emergency Care Plan alongside an investment of £1 billion to deliver 5,000 more hospital beds compared to the numbers originally planned for 2022-23, and to put over 800 more ambulances on the road. This will speed up discharge from hospitals, free up beds for patients needing urgent and emergency care and, ultimately, reduce pressures on hospitals.
It is clear that we need the NHS more than ever, and I believe the Government has taken the appropriate steps to ensure that the NHS has a healthy and viable future. However, I believe that the NHS needs fundamental reform - it is clear than no matter how much money we pour into it, unless it is reformed and the British public stop taking it for granted, waiting times, patient outcomes and so on will not improve.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Yours sincerely,
Sally-Ann Hart MP”