George Osborne has announced that he will put an extra £2bn into frontline health services across the UK. The chancellor said the money was a ‘down payment’ on a plan drawn up by the NHS bosses calling for an extra £8bn a year above inflation by 2020.
The chancellor promises extra £2bn for NHS
He claimed he was able to make the commitment because the economy was strong.
Labour said the restructuring of the NHS had caused a crisis and accused the chancellor of making billions of pounds of unfunded spending commitments.
Shadow chancellor, Ed Balls said that Labour would commit £2.5bn above Mr Osborne’s plan adding that the NHS was ‘in real crisis’.
Mr Osborne plans to announce his pledge in his Autumn Statement on Wednesday to make it official. The decision comes after NHS bosses called for an extra £2bn for the NHS funding pot to enable it to cope with unexpected pressures on NHS budgets.
The chancellor stated: ‘Because we have a strong economy and we’ve got the public finances under control, we can afford to put £2 billion into the frontline of the NHS across the United Kingdom.
I can tell you we can go further and use those fines that have been paid by the banks for a permanent improvement in GP services.
This is a down-payment on the NHS’s own long-term plan and it shows you can have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy.’