ZPB REACTS… budget special

So, there we have it. The first Labour budget for 14 years, and the first ever delivered by a female Chancellor. A significant moment for British politics, but will it have a significant positive impact on the NHS and UK’s public health?

Landing between the Darzi review of the NHS and DHSC’s forthcoming 10 Year Plan, this was an important opportunity for Rachel Reeves and for the Health and Care Secretary Wes Streeting to set out their vision for healthcare.

On Wednesday afternoon, Team-ZPB gathered around BBC News to eagerly dissect and discuss every pledge and commitment. We’ve outlined our three main takeaways below:

More money, more problems?

The Chancellor has announced ￡21.6bn in additional funding for the NHS. While few would question the need for investment in healthcare, this does contradict statements from Streeting on the campaign trail, including a notable interview with The Sunday Times, where he said that more money was not the answer to the NHS’ problems.

Whether this change of direction is down to a change of heart or a newly acquired appreciation of the scale of the challenge is yet to be seen. But so far, it’s been concerning to see a lack of the reforming ideas Wes Streeting and team promised ahead of the election.

The key points made by Rachel Reeves in her budget can be filed under ‘same-old-story’. More appointments, more beds, more hospitals, achieving 18 week waits. It could be a copy and paste from the previous government and while the public may appreciate the ‘save the NHS’ atmosphere around this significant boost to NHS coffers more of the same seems unlikely to deliver the long-term change and improvement we need.

It may be now this budget is finalised we’ll hear more about the tough decisions that need to be made to truly secure the future of the NHS. The current responses of the public consultation Wes and his team kicked off a couple of weeks back suggests the public have a way to go before they understand the significant challenge and hard choices ahead.

Public health own goal?

One of the most controversial announcements made by the Chancellor is an increase in employer National Insurance Contributions (NIC). Balanced against tax freezes and wage increases, this is a clear strategy at supporting workers through taxation of businesses.

Whether or not you agree with the political sentiment, it is important to consider the public health implications that the NIC increase could have. With the NHS “broken”, employers offering private medical insurance (PMI) has become an increasingly important part of our public health. A recent research suggested as many as 1 in 5 employers now offer PMI to employees and previous research has shown that PMI has become the most sought-after benefit that employers can offer.

It has been suggested that many UK businesses use the savings generated by National Insurance, along with other tax relief policies, to fund employee wellbeing programmes and pension top ups. The concern is that employers may decide to offset the NIC cost by rolling back PMI provision. And that those organisations who do not provide currently provide PMI will no longer be able to do so in the future.?

Even with the additional funds we can expect reductions to NHS waiting lists to take years to manifest. A reduction in PMI could therefore have a significant negative impact on public health, pushing people back onto overfilled NHS waiting lists.

Better than the cure

It was unsurprising to hear NHS investment so high on the agenda. But to deliver significant systemic improvement, we need to do more than just increase appointments or buy more beds. We need to move healthcare-up-stream, from treatment to prevention.

For that reason, we were very pleased that funding for life sciences was listed within the Chancellor’s top priorities for this budget.

This announcement is a much needed to commitment in both research and development – investing in science so that we can better understand and prevent disease and facilitate the creation of game-changing new medicines.

We hope this investment can help to make the UK an attractive location for innovative clinical research once again and help reduce the decade-plus it takes to turn life-saving breakthroughs into approved treatments.

Devil in the detail

The new six months are crucial for the government. In her budget speech, Rachel Reeves continually returned to the financial and systemic challenges that she says Labour have inherited from the previous government. The public’s memory is short. Trust is hard to maintain, and it is easy to lose.

By the time the Spring Statement rolls around, the public’s focus will be firmly on the impact of Labour’s budget, and the government will not be able to rely on blaming the previous regime.

Decisive action and a clear vision of Labour’s view of the NHS and public health is urgently needed.?

…and in ZPB news

The Chancellor covered a lot of ground in her speech, but one area of healthcare that she specifically mentioned was mental health services, calling out that 350,000 people have been waiting for a year for mental health services.

Mental health is an area of interest for ZPB, and this week been busy gaining valuable insights for patients who've sought addiction treatment on behalf of a major mental health provider in the UK through a series of interviews and a wider survey. It’s been fascinating to dive into the many perspectives on their life-changing and, often, life-saving treatment. We’ve also worked with another client to announce a new partnership via the media, helping increase access to mental health services.

With such significant challenges faced by people living with mental health conditions, and by the services that are trying to meet demand, the need for new insights and collaborative solutions are significant. We hope that the government’s commitment to mental health will be a long-term one that makes tangible difference.

Let us know what you think to the budget and what it means for healthcare in the comments below.?

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