Theresa May's flagship NHS plan set to fail because of dithering on social care, NHS bosses say

Theresa May’s flagship healthcare initiative, a £20.6bn increase in NHS budgets to fund its Long-Term Plan, is set to be brought down by her failure to tackle crises in social care and staffing, NHS leaders have said.

Nine out of 10 leaders of NHS trusts, social care organisations and community care services said a funding deal for social care is needed if the reforms in the NHS plan are to be delivered.

The government has delayed its promised reforms six times since 2017 after abandoning its original plan for funding care when it was dubbed a “dementia tax”.

Without these reforms there is little hope of reducing soaring demand in hospitals, which NHS funding is already insufficient to cover, a report by the Health Foundation think-tank and NHS Confederation warns.

The £20.6bn increase by 2023/24 was promised by Theresa May to address rising waiting times and patient numbers with new technology and improvements to areas like mental health.

But hospital activity is set to rise by at least 2.7 per cent by that point, and the Health Foundation estimates show that once wage growth is factored in hospitals will only have capacity to increase demand by 2.3 per cent a year.

Only a quarter of NHS leaders thought they would be able to reduce demand in their area as things stand.

With no action on social care its budget is set to rise at 1.4 per cent a year, well below the 3.4 per cent growth it needs.

Two-thirds said workforce was their top concern with shortages of mental health staff, GPs and community nurses “crippling” efforts to improve access.

Meanwhile preventative public health services, such as stop smoking schemes and obesity programmes, have had their budgets cut under the austerity regime.

“Failure to address this in the next spending review will put the ambitions of the NHS plan in jeopardy, and patients will not feel the full benefits of the extra £20 billion of funding,” Nial Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said.

“This may look like a bounty when compared with other public services, but it will not be enough unless there is investment in those other neglected areas.”

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Judith Jolly said: "It is unsurprising to see more voices joining the criticisms of the Tory government’s supposed 'long term plan' for the NHS.

"The strategy, which fails to account for the critical staffing shortages in our health service, does not deserve to be seen as a credible proposal let alone be called a 'long term plan'."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said its interim NHS People Plan included measures to reduce vacancies.

"We are also providing an extra £3.9bn in dedicated adult social care funding this year and giving councils £3.5bn to fund public health services," they added.

"We will be setting out plans to transform our approach to public health and reform the social care system at the earliest opportunity.”