NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Labour party thought it would win this argument by pledging extra money for the NHS at its party conference, but that will not actually happen until the second half of the next Parliament and it may not happen at all if it has got its sums wrong. The public reaction was simply not to believe it, because they know that what Labour does to the economy actually puts all NHS funding at risk, which is something we must never allow to happen.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

Earlier this year, the Secretary of State announced a welcome £6.12 million grant for Medway, and on Tuesday he referred to the extra doctors and nurses being taken on in a special measures regime for Medway hospital. Could he assure us that extra and recurring funding will also be available to cover the costs in future?

[Mr Hunt]

The funding I have announced today—the £1.5 billion for front-line NHS services—is recurring, as is the additional Treasury funding of £1 billion. That is being added to the NHS baseline so that it can be invested in long-term increases in staff numbers, among other things.