Baroness Brinton
Main Page: Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)(2 years ago)
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Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. The Treasury said last week that it will not be changing or reviewing the three-year public spending settlement. However, last Friday, the NHS chief finance officer said that that will result in a further £20 billion of efficiency savings as a result of the increased costs that the NHS is having to pay following inflation, and two-thirds of the new integrated commissioning services started by this Government on 1 July are already in deficit because of inflation. How will the NHS will cope with pressures on top of the existing pressures it has with the backlog of cases?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The Government are very much aware of the pressures that the NHS is facing. I think we will have to wait until 31 October for the fiscal plan to understand exactly how expenditure will work out in line with the OBR forecast and in line with how we intend to roll out our growth programme. However, I reassure the noble Baroness that the NHS is vital; there are a lot of pressures and issues to tackle.