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So, finally, the Tories have broken their eight years austerity pledge by announcing a £20billion NHS boost to mark the 70th birthday of NHS.

Well folks don’t be excited, you will be asked to contribute a lot more for the NHS in an increased tax.

Contrary to the belief, there is no Brexit dividend.

And £20billion will barely make up for the eight years of austerity, which has crippled the NHS & social care, and undermined public health in general.

This extra cash too little to prevent patients having to wait even longer for both GP and hospital care.

NHS spending growth is currently on course to be lower this decade than at any other time in the NHS’s history, just 0.4% annual increases in real per capita spend.

(Image: REUTERS)

NHS spending under the Tories, since 2010, has grown 68% slower that the NHS’s average spending settlement since 1955. No government has invested less additional cash in real terms in our NHS than post-2010.

NHS spending, as a share of UK GDP, has fallen since 2010. Two thirds of NHS Trusts & NHS Foundation Trusts are now in deficit, and the total deficit for NHS Trusts has tripled in one year.

In February 2017, the PAC noted a black hole of £22billion in the NHS’s finances It used to be the banks that went bust, under the Tories its our hospitals.

The gap between policy rhetoric and supply reality has never been starker.

The risks of longer waiting times, the clogging up of primary care services, cancelled operations, instability in primary and secondary care, and sinking staff morale would not ease.

At the same time as the limited increase of health care funding, local authority social care budgets in England have been cut by at least £5.1billion between 2009-2010 and 2015-2016, severely affecting the health care.

More than a million elderly persons are not having their social care needs met, an increase of 48% since 2010.

This causes pressure on our A&E wards and in delayed discharges because there are no care packages available for patients.

Since 2010, the NHS has lost 10 million bed spaces as a result of delayed discharges of patients, at a cost to the NHS of £4billion.

The number of admissions from patients aged 80 and above at A&E has grown by 500,000 since 2010. The fabulous wheels on meals service has all but disappeared in many parts of England.

As financial and operational performances deteriorate any additional resources allocated to the NHS by the government as before would be used to bail out hospitals with large deficits and enormous annual PFI charges.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

Precious NHS resources already are being squandered on management consultants, lawyers, accountancy firms, PFI contracts and commercial contracting. Commercial contracting creates waste and fragmentation of care and risks are passed from commissioner to provider to patient like a sinister game of pass the parcel.

I have several problems with Theresa May’s birthday gift to the NHS, a policy statement to solve a political – not practical – problem.

The Prime Minister, in addition to raising the funding to at least 4% a year, should concentrate on transforming the NHS from being a sickness service that diagnoses and treats into one that also promotes health and pre-empts sickness.

Theresa May need to rethink her government’s policies on the role of the private sector in the NHS in England.

The universal healthcare provided by the NHS – once the envy of the world –on its 70th birthday is in serious danger of becoming unsustainable.