What will public spending cuts mean for the NHS and social care?

The longest serving health secretary is now the chancellor of the exchequer in search of cuts. The health service looks exposed, but could Jeremy Hunt end up delivering a workforce plan?Hunt was explicit on the public spending consequences of needing to get debt falling as a share of the economy: “All departments will need to redouble their efforts to find savings, and some areas of spending will need to be cut.”1But he claimed every decision to be announced in the Medium Term Fiscal Plan on 31 October will “prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable.”2One part of the prime minister Liz Truss’s growth plan that survived the Hunt cull was the abolition of the health and social care levy, which the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had estimated would raise £12.4 billion a year.3 Abolition does not hit the spending plans for those services, but it kills off an experiment…
Read Original Article: What will public spending cuts mean for the NHS and social care? »