• The prime minister Theresa May has delivered a speech to NHS leaders setting out the government’s proposals for a long-term funding settlement and a ten year plan for the NHS.
• At the weekend, the government announced the NHS England budget would increase by 3.4% a year on average over the next five years.

Responding to the Prime Minister’s speech on a long-term plan for the NHS, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:

“We welcome the extra funding and ambitions for a long term plan to improve the quality of care the NHS is able to provide to the public. The NHS has faced a decade of austerity but we now have an opportunity to invest in our staff, buildings and services to meet the expectations the public rightly has.

“The proposed annual increases are in line with the level needed to maintain current services against rapidly rising demand. We know that to deliver improvements beyond this we will need to do more to make the NHS as efficient as possible. But we must be realistic about what more can be achieved given the NHS is already outperforming the wider economy on productivity. NHS trusts delivered efficiency savings last year of £3.2bn – this firmly places the NHS as one of the most efficient health care systems in the world.

We must be realistic about what more can be achieved given the NHS is already outperforming the wider economy on productivity.

Chris Hopson    

“This welcome funding settlement will also still mean we face difficult choices on what our priorities should be. It is vital that NHS trusts have a strong role in shaping and agreeing the delivery plan so that the NHS frontline has a set of financial and performance goals that are realistic and can actually be delivered.  

“A key part of this will be the delivery of a comprehensive plan to ensure we have the right staff and skill mix in place to deliver high quality services. It will also mean ensuring we are able to join-up and integrate services for the public much more effectively than we are now able to. The existing legislation continues to be a barrier to more integrated care and causes unnecessary bureaucracy, so we welcome the Prime Minister’s offer for NHS leaders to develop proposals for how the legislation may be simplified.

It is vital that NHS trusts have a strong role in shaping and agreeing the delivery plan so that the NHS frontline has a set of financial and performance goals that are realistic and can actually be delivered.

Chris Hopson    

“Finally, we welcome the Government’s commitment to addressing social care as well as other critical areas of health expenditure, such as public health and prevention, that are not covered in this announcement. We are clear that fixing NHS funding without doing the same for these other vital areas will simply store up problems for front-line health services, as well as falling short of the care and support the public needs.”