The NHS repairs budget has been slashed by £1.1bn, in an unpublicised cut included in George Osborne’s 2016 Budget.
The Chancellor did not mention the cut in his Budget speech, and the 30% decrease in funding was only uncovered following a Labour-sponsored review of the Budget by the House of Commons Library.
The capital budget of the NHS is used to fund repairs and replace out-of-date or broken equipment. The NHS was expected to be allocated £4.8bn to cover this area, but the Budget revealed the health service will only be receiving £3.7bn of capital budget. It will cost the NHS an estimated £4.3bn to complete all outstanding maintenance work. This includes £458m of repairs classified as “high-risk”, which could endanger patients’ lives and wellbeing if they are not repaired.
Full story at The Independent 20 March 2016