Hunt ploughs £6bn into NHS in battle to boost productivity

Reforms intended to cut bureaucracy and reduce waiting times

Jeremy Hunt is ploughing an additional £6 billion into the NHS as he seeks to improve productivity and cut waiting lists using artificial intelligence.
Hospital efficiency will be measured under the plans, with the best-performing trusts handed extra financial rewards.
Claiming that “the NHS is, rightly, the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British”, the Chancellor said that £3.4 billion would be earmarked “to modernise NHS IT systems so they’re as good as the best in the world”.
Jeremy Hunt said the package would help unlock £35 billion of savings, and save doctors and nurses 13 million hours a year.
He also promised an extra £2.5 billion to help the NHS meet pressures in the coming year.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that without this boost, the health service would have seen the biggest real-term cuts since the 1970s.
David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS, said: “We can’t rule out further top-ups later in the year, though – funding is still set to be tight and in-year NHS top-ups have become something of a tradition.”
The additional funding comes on top of existing health spending of £182 billion, which has increased by an average of 5.6pc a year in real terms since 2019-20. 
Artificial intelligence will be rolled out to cut the amount of time medics spend filling in forms, including the deployment of more sophisticated transcription services.
Pilots found automating patients notes and GP letters freed up medics to spend more time with patients, with one scheme halving the amount of time spent on admin.
Across the NHS, this could unlock an annual productivity benefit of £500-850 million, he said.
Mr Hunt said that improvements to the NHS app, so patients can modify all appointments, would cut the number of missed appointments by up to 500,000.
He also promised the rollout of technology including AI to help doctors read MRI and CT scans more accurately and quickly.
Mr Hunt told the Commons this would speed up results for 130,000 patients every year, saving thousands of lives – “something I know would have delighted my brother Charlie, who I recently lost to cancer”.
Changes to digitise theatre processes, rather than relying on pens and paper, would mean the same number of surgeons could carry out an extra 200,000 operations a year, he said, promising to accelerate plans to bring a wealth of operational data together.
The Chancellor said that the drive was part of a “landmark Public Sector Productivity Plan that restarts public service reform and changes the Treasury’s traditional approach to public spending”.
The NHS Productivity Plan will not be published until the summer.
The latest projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that between 2027-28 and 2050-51, public spending – excluding debt interest – will grow at 2.2 per cent per year if the Government does not take action, which is faster than projected economic growth of 1.7 per cent per year.
On Thursday, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, will set out a vision for a more efficient NHS, saying that changes to boost productivity will be backed by a new emphasis on prevention of ill health, to keep more people healthy for longer.
However, Labour attacked the Government for repeatedly making promises to modernise NHS technology that had not been kept.
As health secretary in 2013, Mr Hunt promised to make the NHS paperless within five years, a promise repeated by his successor, Matt Hancock, who in 2018 vowed to “axe the fax”.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “How can anyone trust the Conservatives’ promises today, when they couldn’t even axe the fax or purge the pager? We have heard it all before.
“The Budget showed Labour is winning the argument on change and modernisation in the NHS. We need a general election so Labour can deliver the reform the NHS needs.”
Health leaders welcomed the investment but said productivity gains would only be realised if the NHS’s “crumbling estates” were tackled.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The £3.4 billion additional investment in technology over the next Parliament has the potential to improve patient care and staff productivity as it will help to replace outdated IT systems that keep those on the front line from spending more time with patients.
“Meanwhile, extending electronic patient records to all hospitals will help to support joined up care across services. However, bigger productivity gains will only be realised if the NHS’s crumbling estates are addressed too.”
Chris Thomas, the head of Institute for Public Policy Research’s commission on health and prosperity, said that it was a “fantasy” to think the money to increase productivity would achieve the result.
He said: “The money announced is barely enough to keep NHS funding from falling – at a time every light in the service is flashing red, and reduced investment in a crumbling estate and in primary care is undermining productivity.”
Greg Smith, the Tory MP for Buckingham, urged the health service to use the new cash to ensure it becomes more efficient.
“The challenges in the NHS are in part financial, so the extra money is welcome,” he said.
“But it is the productivity work that will really improve things for patients, for wait times and for saving lives.”
More than three in five (61 per cent) of voters in the Red Wall cite the NHS as among the three most important issues that will determine who they back at the general election later this year, polling from Redfield and Wilton Strategies shows.
Half of these voters said they did not currently trust the Conservatives to deliver on the NHS.
Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, criticised the announcement as “irrelevant tinkering that bureaucrats will waste”.
He said: “The NHS needs fundamental reform as per our plan announced in Doncaster. It also needs an extra £17 billion but not to NHS managers. Instead this should go to the independent sector and front-line staff.”
Ms Atkins said: “This significant investment in the NHS demonstrates how committed we are to providing a health and care system that works faster, is simpler to use and is fairer for all.
“The funding for next year will help the NHS’s hard-working staff look after patients well and will train more staff through the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
“Our landmark investment in technology will build the NHS of the future, allowing doctors and nurses to focus on patients rather than admin, while harnessing revolutionary treatments for a range of illnesses like strokes and cancer.”