Britain’s NHS would become one of only two government departments not to face budget cuts in the latest spending review. However some key features have been removed. This includes one-week wait for cancer diagnosis and free prescriptions for people with long-term illnesses. The plan for a new £200 million cancer drugs fund is also being considered. The review also says that the NHS needs to find up to £20bn of “efficiency savings” to pay for expensive new treatments and an ageing population with chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. This would mean loss of jobs for thousands.
Health spending is expected to rise by 0.1 per cent a year in real terms for the next four years (from £104bn this year to £114bn). Capital expenditure, for wards and hospitals, will be cut by 17 per cent. A spare £1bn from existing budgets is also necessary to pay for a new social care fund.
According to the Department of Health it would reduce its administrative budgets by 22 per cent by 2014. This would include reduction of health ‘quangos’ from 18 to 10. Another effective method of saving would be the employment of 4,000 clinical scientists employed by the NHS so they do more of the diagnostic work now done by doctors. This may save £250 million a year.
A controversial cut was the proposal to scrap the £200 million-a-year fund for cancer drugs which was promised by David Cameron and Andrew Lansley, now Health Secretary, before the election. Labour said the government had broken promises on cancer care.
John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund health think tank, said the money was “the bare minimum to meet the coalition's pledge. It is the width of the proverbial cigarette paper.”
Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, an independent umbrella body for organizations within the NHS, said the settlement “is as good as the NHS could have hoped for under the circumstances ... we have to be realistic as almost every other department is taking a big cut.”
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