Posted 29 June 2018 - 12:33
Posted 29 June 2018 - 12:33
News
'We must be wise stewards of taxpayers' £20.5 billion boost'
NHS will need to be disciplined in using the money to improve care, insists Simon Stevens
NHS will need to be disciplined in using the money to improve care, insists Simon Stevens
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said the health service has ‘enormous responsibility to be wise stewards’ of the extra money it will receive from the taxpayer.
Prime minister Theresa May said the public will have to pay ‘a bit more’ in tax to fund the extra £20.5 billion-a-year investment in the health service over four years.
Mr Stevens said it was vital the NHS is disciplined in using that resource to improve patient care.
‘Taxpayer resource’
He told Westminster political magazine The House: ‘Everybody in the health service recognises that not only is it right to fund the health service properly but in doing so we are making a call on taxpayers’ resources. So, we've got an enormous responsibility to be wise stewards of this additional investment.’
He said the cash boost was a ‘meaningful improvement on the constrained funding that we've been having to operate under because the economy tanked in 2008’.
Mr Stevens, who has previously clashed with the prime minister on NHS funding, added: ‘If I didn't think this was a workable funding settlement, then, yes, I have in the past felt a sort of obligation to speak out. But, equally, when you get a workable funding improvement, which this clearly is, then I am very happy to be clear about that too.’
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