The Institute for Public Policy Research has said that an extra £12 billion a year is needed to invest in the NHS and care system, to recover the damage done by coronavirus and ensure the health service can guarantee world-leading outcomes and care for generations to come.
Having carried out the most extensive review of the toll the coronavirus pandemic has inflicted on health and care service in England since the crisis began, the IPPR think tank found that there have been 31 million fewer GP appointments since the pandemic began and an additional 4,500 avoidable cancer deaths are expected this year because of pandemic disruptions.
Additionally, the IPPR found that checks on people with severe mental illnesses have fallen below a third of their target levels, that the low care home death toll during the second wave suggests most of the 30,000 care home deaths in the first wave were largely avoidable, and that an additional 12,000 avoidable heart attacks and strokes are expected in the next five years due to coronavirus disruptions to routine health services.
The report shows that the Covid-19 pandemic has undone years of progress tackling other major illnesses and if left unaddressed threatens to cause a decade of health disruption to prevention, diagnosis and treatments.
IPPR says that the strain the pandemic has put on the NHS in England is severe, but manageable if urgent action is taken by the government. The think tank calculates that just to recover the elective backlog and manage the mental health surge caused by the pandemic, the NHS budget needs an extra £2.2 billion per year for next five years.
However, the report urges the government to go further than just restoring the NHS to its already dangerously overstretched pre-pandemic level. The researchers instead set out a blueprint for ambitious reform across the health and care sector in England, defining what the government’s ‘build back better’ mantra should look like in reality.
The think tank calculates that a further £10.1 billion of investment would be needed annually, on top of the £2.2 billion coronavirus catch-up funding, to realise this vision of a truly world-leading service and to get the NHS in England back on course to meet its own NHS Long Term Plan objectives. In the immediate term, this spending should be funded by borrowing but in the long term taxes will need to rise to fund the higher spending permanently.
Immediate policy priorities include the government setting aside at least £1.4 billion to enable an average pay rise of five per cent for NHS staff, and guarantee a living wage for all care workers through government wage subsidy, similar to the furlough scheme, at a cost of £1 billion.
Longer term, IPPR suggests the government reform health education, training and progression to develop a workforce with the right skills mix to meet future health needs, and raise spending on NHS infrastructure, matching at least OECD levels, to upgrade ageing buildings and create more capacity across the health and care.
Dr Parth Patel, IPPR Research fellow and lead author, said: “The NHS has been there for us, from outbreak to vaccine. Our blueprint for reform is the booster shot it now dearly needs. A decade of austerity left our NHS running at the top of its capacity, rather than the top of its game. As a result, the consequences of the pandemic on people suffering with illnesses such as cancer and depression have been huge. There is a real risk now that this damage embeds and the NHS falls further down international rankings.
“The government wants to ‘build back better’ in health and care. This landmark report provides a costed and comprehensive plan on how to do that. It offers implementable solutions to the shrinking workforce, the crisis in care and fragmented health services.”
