Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, pledged more money for the NHS this week, promising on television to raise the proportion of the UK gross domestic product spent on health from the present 6.8%to the European national average, 8%If he carries out his pledge, spending on the NHS will rise by at least £9bn ($14.4bn).
Mr Blair was forced to take the initiative on health following a week of damaging headlines in the media. It started with accusations from opposition politicians that the NHS was not coping with the flu outbreak and climaxed with an attack on government health policy from one of Labour's own supporters, Lord Robert Winston, professor of fertility studies at the Hammersmith Hospital, London.
After Professor Winston's remarks in the New Statesman last Friday, other organisations immediately weighed in with their own criticisms of government's inadequate spending.
Mr Barry Jackson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “We desperately need more doctors, but at the present time the number of surgeons in training is being reduced, and there are signs that there will be insufficient consultant posts for those already in training.”
The Intensive Care Society also challenged the government's claim to have increased the number of intensive care beds by 100 since the autumn. Giles Morgan, the society's president, said its members did not know where the new beds were to be found.
Mr Blair, speaking on BBC television's Breakfast with Frost programme, admitted that spending on the NHS, currently £45bn, was “too low at the moment.” He said that real term annual increases of about 5%in the next comprehensive spending review would take the United Kingdom up to the EU average. The review is due for completion in July and will set out spending plans up to 2003-4.
He agreed that the NHS was facing problems and accepted that it was his responsibility “to put the situation right,” but he did not think that higher taxes were the answer. He pledged that that this year's pay awards to doctors and nurses would be met in full.