When Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that over half the new tax rises in her first Budget would go straight into the National Health Service, an immediate question followed: where’s the reform? The big health promise made by this government, after all, was to tie any additional money to an NHS overhaul – the biggest in its history. And it was the Prime Minister who only a few months ago, when speaking at the Kings Fund in London, said ‘hear me when I say this, no more money without reform’.
Yet there in the Budget was an additional £22 billion for day-to-day spending, with seemingly no strings attached. The biggest announcement on the NHS so far has been a nation-wide consultation to offer suggestions to improve the health service (the nation has some interesting answers). But the details of reform have remained under wraps – until now. This morning Health Secretary Wes Streeting is announcing the first set of changes to the NHS, which will include public league tables for hospital outcomes and changes to remuneration for NHS managers more closely linked to performance.
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