Extra funding for the NHS: ‘welcome and badly needed’ or a ‘hefty sacrifice’ of taxpayers’ cash?

Twenty years ago, the NHS accounted for 27% of all day-to-day public service spending. Today, that figure is closer to 40%

Rishi Sunak on budget day
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

It’s said the NHS is the nearest thing Britain has to a national religion, said Oliver Wright in The Times. If so, its god is demanding increasingly “hefty sacrifices” of taxpayers’ cash.

In the hope of clearing the backlog of 5.6 million people stuck on hospital waiting lists, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced £5.9bn in funding for NHS diagnostic tests and operations. That’s on top of the £12bn a year, over three years, that’s meant to come from increased National Insurance payments.

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