NHS to get ‘significant cash boost’ on its 70th birthday, Jeremy Hunt reveals
2 min read
Theresa May is set to announce a “significant” increase in NHS funding 70 years on from the service’s creation, the Health Secretary has revealed.
In an interview with the Guardian, Jeremy Hunt insisted that the Prime Minister was “unbelievably committed” to the health service and had agreed to a cash boost above the 1% annual rises it has been receiving over recent years.
He told the newspaper: “She is unbelievably committed. You should not underestimate how committed she is to the NHS.
“So she is absolutely 100% behind getting this right.
“I’ve been making the NHS’s case that we need significant and sustainable funding increases to meet the demographic challenges we face, and the Prime Minister completely appreciates that.
“Now the economy is back on its feet and growing much more healthily we’re able to have a discussion for the first time about [a] significant increase in resources, and that presents enormous opportunity for the country in terms of the type of NHS that our children and grandchildren will experience.”
However, Mr Hunt also admitted that some key NHS targets he had set would be missed, conceding that a 2015 pledge to increase the number of GPs in England by 5,000 by 2020 would not be met.
He said: “We do need 5,000 more GPs and we are struggling to deliver that pledge, but I’m absolutely determined to do so because GPs are working incredibly hard; too hard.
“I got quite widely ridiculed when I made the pledge in 2015. I wanted to nail my colours to the mast of getting more GPs into the system. But it has been harder than we thought.
“This is not a pledge that we’re abandoning because it’s a very, very important pledge for the NHS and with general practice. It’s just taking a bit longer than I had hoped.”
And, he added, that despite a five-year effort to improve safety for patients it remained “deeply flawed,” with staff “terrified” to admit mistakes.
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