NHS budgets must double to ensure buildings are fit for care

According to analysis from the NHS Confederation, capital budgets within the NHS must double to ensure that the delivery of faster and more productive patient care can be supported.

Published yesterday, the Investing to Save: The Capital Requirement for a More Sustainable NHS in England report has outlined that a further £6.4 billion of capital funding must be committed through all three years of the next Spending Review so that the NHS’ maintenance backlog can be addressed. This will also help with the refurbishment of dilapidated buildings, the upgrading of equipment, and the increasing of staff productivity.

Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, Matthew Taylor, said:

“Some of our members have parts of their estate that are barely fit for the 19th century, let alone the 21st, so any future Secretary of State for Health and Social Care must make the physical and digital condition of the NHS a priority if the health service is to reduce backlogs and get productivity levels to where the government want them to be.

“Lack of capital across different care settings, covering digital and physical infrastructure and mental and physical health, is clearly not just leading to missed opportunities to improve productivity, but actively undermining it and causing patient safety issues. Health leaders across England have endless ideas about how capital funding could drive large productivity increases.

“Equipping staff with the right tools, and allowing them to operate in safe, modern, optimised environments will improve efficiency, meaning that an increase to the capital budget will help limit the need for growth in revenue spend, relieve pressure on wider NHS finances and services, and put the NHS on the path to longer-term financial sustainability.

“This will require a significant increase to the NHS capital budget to make up for years of under-resourcing and repeated raids on capital that has left much of the estate broken. Based on the assessment of health leaders, this will need to be an increase of £6.4 billion to take the capital budget to £14.1 billion for each year of the next spending review in order to fully address the repairs backlog and realise some of the innovative transformation projects which have previously fallen by the wayside. The next government must grasp the nettle.”

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Source: National Health Executive, 29 November 2023