
Rebuild Our Health Service has welcomed Labour’s rescue plan for the NHS, which includes an extra £15 billion for new buildings and equipment. Labour has also promised to raise NHS capital spending to the average of the OECD, something which Rebuild Our Health Service and NHS Providers have been campaigning for. Currently NHS spending on buildings and equipment is around half the OECD average.
In addition, Labour has promised to make the following capital investments:
- Provide a new £2 billion strategic mental health infrastructure fund to abolish dormitory wards and make every inpatient setting safe for patients, invest in more beds to end out of area placements and roll out a fleet of crisis ambulances.
- Invest an extra £2.5 billion to overhaul the primary care estate so that GPs can deliver better local care in their communities.
- Provide an extra £1.5 billion to increase the numbers of CT and MRI scanners to the OECD average to radically improve diagnostic capacity and improve cancer outcomes.
Omar Salem, founder of Rebuild Our Health Service, said:
“Over the past decade, as part of austerity, budgets for NHS equipment and buildings were raided by the government to be used for day-to-day running costs. As a result, the NHS is falling apart. Hospitals are crumbling, equipment is broken and repairs are not being done. This announcement by Labour could provide a massive boost to end the NHS buildings and equipment crisis”.