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NHS pay offer: ministers don’t know where the money’s coming from

Chancellor tells MPs the Treasury has not discussed with health department how NHS pay offer would be funded, deepening fears of a raid on existing NHS budgets
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt talks about funding for the NHS pay offer to MPs on the Commons treasury committee

Chancellor tells MPs the Treasury has not discussed with health department how NHS pay offer would be funded, deepening fears of a raid on existing NHS budgets

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt talks about funding for the NHS pay offer to MPs on the Commons treasury committee
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt speaking to MPs Picture: Parliament TV

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt admitted talks between the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about funding the NHS pay offer have not even started.

This is despite the health and social care secretary claiming earlier this week he was working with the Treasury to ensure there was money to fund the pay offer.

Mr Hunt told MPs on the Commons treasury committee on 29 March he had not yet spoken to health and social care secretary Steve Barclay about how much money might come from new funding, rather than existing NHS budgets.

Discussion of pay award funding ‘has not happened yet’

The revelation comes as hundreds of thousands of NHS workers in England, including nurses, are voting on whether to accept the offer of a 5% pay rise.

Labour’s Dame Angela Eagle asked the chancellor: ‘The health secretary has said the deal with nurses, paramedics and others… will be fully funded. Those workers are voting even as we speak as to whether to accept it. The Treasury has said it will come from wider spending plans for the coming year, which implies cuts to other departments. Which is it?’

Mr Hunt said money is usually allocated in the spending review, but the government was in a ‘different situation’ because inflation had meant pay awards ‘have ended up higher than expected’.

He added: ‘There is a discussion with departments as to how much help comes from the centre, and we have not had that discussion yet.’

Yet earlier this week Mr Barclay said he was working with the Treasury to ensure health and social care has the money it needs to ‘fully fund this pay offer, which will include additional funding and reprioritising existing budgets’.

Money could be found in ‘efficiencies and reprioritisations’

Mr Hunt indicated funds could be found from departmental ‘efficiencies and reprioritisations’, despite previous assurances to unions by the DHSC that any pay rise would not be funded by cuts.

The RCN and Unison are recommending members accept a proposed 5% pay rise for 2023-24. However, unions, health leaders and nurses themselves have expressed concerns that without extra funding the pay offer could hit NHS budgets and other public services.

NHS Providers chief executive Julian Hartley insisted there is ‘no fat left to trim’, so any pay rise must be funded with new money. And NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said health leaders have been clear the pay offer needs to be fully funded or risks ‘inevitable consequences for patient care’.

The government has repeatedly said funding the new pay offer will not affect front-line services.


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