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Budget 2017: Philip Hammond delivers extra £2.8bn to the NHS

Budget 2017: Philip Hammond delivers extra £2.8bn to the NHS
22 November 2017



Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced an extra £335m to help Trusts tackle winter pressures this year.

This figure is part of an extra £2.8bn allocated to the NHS in England, according to today's 2017 Budget, published by the Treasury.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced an extra £335m to help Trusts tackle winter pressures this year.

This figure is part of an extra £2.8bn allocated to the NHS in England, according to today's 2017 Budget, published by the Treasury.

In his speech to the House of Commons, Mr Hammond pledged the Government would deliver an 'additional £10bn package of capital investment in frontline services over the course of this Parliament to help sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) to make the NHS more resilient’.

NHS under pressure

He acknowledged that even with the extra funding, NHS England remains under pressure. 

He said: ‘I'm therefore and exceptionally outside the spending review process making an additional commitment of resource funding of £2.8bn to the NHS in England.'

The extra funding will help reduce Accident and Emergency (A&E) services waiting times, with around three million patients expected to wait more than four hours to be seen this winter.  

In total, Mr Hammond said a £7.5bn increase will be allocated to the NHS resource budget over this year and 2018.

NHS a 'great institution'

Mr Hammond praised NHS staff’s skills and committment, handling the challenges of an ageing population and advancing technology.

He said: ‘Our NHS is one of our great institutions and essential part of what we are as a nation. We will always back it.’

Earlier this month, the chief of the NHS Simon Stevens called for the Government to make good on its Brexit health pledge and increase spending on health services by £350m per week.

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