• The prime minister has announced new funding for the NHS.
• NHS funding will rise by an average of 3.4% above inflation over five years
• The increase applies to NHS spending rather than the overall health budget

Responding to the prime minister’s comments on the Andrew Marr show, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:

“This additional NHS funding is welcome. NHS Providers has argued for some time that the NHS is over-stretched and under-resourced and we are pleased the Government has listened.

“The NHS remains the British institution of which we are proudest as a nation and we welcome the fact that, for its 70th birthday, the Government has committed to a more generous, longer term, advance, funding settlement than it has done for any other public service.

“We will want to see the details of the announcement, including the impact on the wider health budget, but the immediate task ahead is significant. After almost a decade of austerity, the NHS has a lot of catching up to do, just to deliver the standards of care the NHS constitution requires. The average annual increase of 3.4 per cent above inflation over the next five years is only slightly more than the 3.3 per cent increases some experts say is needed to just maintain the current levels of service in the face of growing cost and demand.

We must be realistic about how far this funding, and productivity gains will go - there will still be difficult choices to make about priorities. We must also recognise that, without adequate support for social care, the NHS will always be held back.

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“So we must be realistic about how far this funding, and productivity gains will go - there will still be difficult choices to make about priorities. We must also recognise that, without adequate support for social care, the NHS will always be held back. This welcome funding boost also needs to be accompanied by an NHS workforce strategy that copes with growing and changing demand.

“It is the Government’s task to set the NHS budget but it is the NHS’s task to say what can be delivered for that money. It is vital that trusts have a strong voice 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.”