Spending on the NHS will rise from just under £50bn ($80bn) to almost £70bn in the United Kingdom over the next four years, Gordon Brown, thechancellor of the exchequer, announced in the Budget last week.
The health secretary, Alan Milburn, announced on Tuesday how an initial £660m cash boost was going to be distributed.
The average year on year increase over the next four years in real terms will be 6.1% The biggest leap in spending will come immediately, in the financial year starting this month. The NHS will receive an increase of £2bn, a rise of 7.4% in real terms. The year on year growth will then slow down to 5.6% a year for the remaining three years.
Although the increases were welcomed last week, health economists pointed out that it would still not bring spending on the NHS up to the average for Europe, the prime minister's declared aim. Tony Blair said in January that an increase in real terms of 5% a year would be enough to achieve the target (22 January, p 205), but that claim has been widely challenged.
John Appleby, director of the health systems programme at the King's Fund, London, said in the BMJ last week that an annual increase of 9.7% was needed to meet the target (25 March,p 865), and Adrian Towse and Jon Sussex of the Office of Health Economics, London, claimed that an increase of 8.7% a year was needed (4 March, p 640).
The Treasury predicts that the proportion of gross domestic product being spent on health in the United Kingdom will be 7.6% by 2003-4, which it described as a “significant step towards the EU average.”
Health service representatives expressed their satisfaction at the increase. Stephen Thornton, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The increase in funding for the NHS will mean we can turn our attention from crisis management to delivering modernisation.”
Chris Ham, professor of health policy and management at the University of Birmingham, said: “This is the most generous increase in funding for the NHS in its history. It won't deliver instant results but offers the prospect of progress over a period of years.” (see p 883)
Cash for the UK NHS
1998-9 1999-2000 2000-1 2001-2 2002-3 2003-4 Average
Previous plans(£bn) 45.1 49.3 52.2 55.5
New allocations(£bn) 45.1 49.3 54.2 58.6 63.5 68.7
Year on yearreal growth () 7.4 5.6 5.6 5.6 6.1