Cancer care and mental health services could be cut to slash NHS spending by £20billion over three years, finance officer warns
- NHS might have to slash cancer, mental health and GP services to cut spending
- Financial pressures could scupper efforts to tackle waiting lists of 6.8 million
- Chief Financial Officer Julian Kelly said they would need to save about £14billion
- Mr Kelly said staff absence is also ‘driving much higher temporary staffing costs’
The NHS could be forced to slash cancer, mental health and GP services in a bid to cut spending by £20billion over the next three years due to spiralling inflation.
The warning from NHS England’s chief financial officer raised fears that a ‘financial hit of this magnitude’ could scupper efforts to tackle record waiting lists of 6.8 million.
Julian Kelly said it would need to save around £14billion, which in part relates to extra funding received for dealing with Covid.
He said ‘potential ongoing inflation’ could see further cost pressures of about £6-7billion next year, if you were to take the Bank of England’s forecast of 9 per cent CPI.
The NHS could be forced to slash cancer, mental health and GP services in a bid to cut spending by £20billion over the next three years. (Stock image)
It could mean the NHS will have to find a total of £20billion in efficiency savings due to a combination of inflation costs and the costs of this year’s pay award, which was only partially funded by the Government.
Staff absence is also ‘driving much higher temporary staffing costs’, Mr Kelly said.
Speaking at an NHS England board meeting yesterday, he said: ‘If we had to manage [savings] within the budget we have, clearly you have to completely revisit investment in cancer and mental health, primary care, the increase in diagnostic capacity…’
Miriam Deakin, NHS Providers’ director of policy and strategy, said: ‘Inflation is eating into NHS budgets, making it even harder to meet growing demand.’
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