NHS Long-term Plan

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

We are very keen that the Government’s attempt to have a proper plan should work. The Minister knows that the staff are working under shortages of numbers and terrible shortages of finance. The Government go on and on about promised increased finance. According to the Health Foundation, funding for the wider health budget, which includes public health, will in real terms be £1 billion less in the next financial year. Are they right?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

It is very important to pay tribute to the extraordinary work that NHS staff are doing across the system and in the wider healthcare system—we should thank them for that. The noble Lord is right that there is great financial stress in the system. A lot of work has gone into trying to alleviate it. That is why the NHS is one of the few parts of the public health system which received a significant increase in the £22 billion increase.

As for the public health system, training and the capital and social care investment, this will be part of the SR negotiations. I am sure the noble Lord will be aware that the Department of Health and Social Care will be making a strong case for increasing those parts of the system, because we believe it needs to increase just as much as he does.