Manifesto health pledges from main parties are “unfunded commitments,” says IFS

The UK’s two main political parties will struggle to meet the NHS pledges in their election manifestos under current spending plans, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.1The think tank noted that both the Conservatives and Labour have made ambitious pledges on the NHS including lowering waiting times, funding the NHS England workforce plan, building more hospitals, and expanding mental health services. But IFS director Paul Johnson said these promises are “essentially unfunded commitments” because the parties have failed to set out in detail how they will pay for them.He said, “These ‘fully costed’ manifestos appear to imply all this can be delivered free. It can’t. You can’t pledge to end all waits of more than 18 weeks, allocate no money to that pledge, and then claim to have a fully costed manifesto.”IFS estimates that meeting the NHS workforce plan alone could require health spending to rise from £192bn…
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