Liz Truss would be “robbing Peter to pay Paul” if she diverted £13bn of NHS funding to deal with a Covid backlog in social care, experts say.
The leader of the Conservative leadership told a group on Tuesday night that he would spend the £13 billion earmarked for the NHS to catch up with post-Covid treatment delays in social care.
She said: “I would spend that money on social care. A lot has gone to the NHS. I would give it to local authorities. We have people in beds in the NHS who would be better off in social care. So put that money into care social
“We put in the extra £13bn and what people who work in the NHS tell me is that the problem is the number of layers of the organization they have to go through to get things done, the lack of local decision-making. That’s what people tell me is the problem, rather than the lack of funding.”
Richard Murray, the chief executive of the King’s Fund, a health think tank, praised Truss for paying attention to social care, saying a sustained lack of funding had left England with a system that was failing many people , but said the NHS also needed the funding.
“Liz Truss’s comments are a welcome acknowledgment that a lack of social care capacity has a knock-on effect on other health and care services, but it is difficult to see how the NHS could remove this funding without affecting the standards of care that patients receive,” he said.
“The unfortunate reality for whoever takes over as Prime Minister is that robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a sustainable solution to the health and care crisis.”
The £13 billion, which was to be raised from higher National Insurance (NI) contributions brought in under Boris Johnson, was always earmarked for social care in later years, but in the short term is allocated to help the NHS recover from the impact of the pandemic.
Truss has said he would ditch the NI increase and find the extra funding from general taxation, but said it would have to go into social care.
It comes after it emerged that Truss co-authored a paper in 2009 which backed the introduction of charges for patients to see their GP and cut doctors’ pay by 10%. He wrote an article alongside it defending NHS cuts, saying the health service “cannot be put on a pedestal”.
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements and content funded by third parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Labor questioned Truss’s comments about diverting money from the NHS to social care. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, highlighted the intense pressure the NHS is under even before winter arrives.
“When the NHS faces the biggest crisis in its history, the last thing it needs is a Prime Minister who has called for cuts to its budget, charging patients to see a doctor and cutting doctors’ pay.” he said.
“There is no doubt that we need to recruit more health workers to ease the pressure on the NHS and ensure residents are well cared for. Labor will recruit and retain more carers by ensuring full rights at work, decent standards, fair pay and adequate training as the first step in building a national care service”.