Our response to extra funding for health and social care in Spring Budget

Nigel Edwards responds to the announcement of extra money for the NHS and social care in the Spring Budget.

Press release

Published: 08/03/2017

Responding to the announcements on social care funding in the Chancellor’s Budget statement today, Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust health think-tank, said:

The £2 billion announced for social care over the next three years is welcome and desperately needed. But the £1 billion share of that cash promised for next year will plug only half of the funding gap we’ve identified for that year. 

Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive, Nuffield Trust

“The £2 billion announced for social care over the next three years is welcome and desperately needed – but the £1 billion share of that cash promised for next year will plug only half of the funding gap we’ve identified for that year.  £1 billion is also only the sum that’s already been cut from local councils’ adult social care budgets over the last five years. More and more vulnerable people are therefore going to be denied the help they need in the next year.

“It’s good news that the Government has recognised the need for a complete reform of the whole system of paying for care in later life, but there have already been four independent reviews of this subject in the last two decades (see note 1), none of which have led to significant change – so this one will need to lead to concrete action to make any difference”.

On the Chancellor’s announcement of extra capital funding for the NHS, Mr Edwards commented:

Putting family doctors into A&E departments to help treat less sick patients is a good idea, and the capital funding the Chancellor has announced today will help hospitals which don’t currently have enough space to do it – but the big question is whether we actually have enough GPs to make this policy a reality.

Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive, Nuffield Trust

“It’s a sensible idea to make extra capital funding available immediately to help the new local health partnerships put their plans for new facilities into practice.  But given that £1.2 billion has already been taken from the NHS’s capital budget this year by the Department of Health simply to plug the gap in Trusts’ running costs, there is no point topping up capital reserves if they’re going to be raided in this way in the future.

“Putting family doctors into A&E departments to help treat less sick patients is a good idea, and the capital funding the Chancellor has announced today will help hospitals which don’t currently have enough space to do it – but the big question is whether we actually have enough GPs to make this policy a reality”.

Notes to editors

  1. Sutherland Review (1999), Wanless Review (2006), Dilnot Review (2011), Barker Commission (2014).

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