The claim
“There is no cut in the National Health Service – we’re actually putting £10.6bn extra into the NHS during this parliament.”
David Cameron MP, Prime Minister’s Questions, 2 February 2011
Cathy Newman checks it out
In his first party conference as Conservative leader, David Cameron explained that whereas Tony Blair had explained his priorities in three words – “education, education, education” – he could do it in three letters – NHS.
So when his government unveiled the biggest cuts to public spending since World War II, he tied himself in knots trying to protect the NHS.
He promised he’d ring fence the health service from cuts (“cut the deficit, not the NHS” was how he put it during the general election), and when the Spending Review was published in the Autumn, it looked as if that was exactly what he and the Chancellor had done.
But all is not quite as it seems. So when the prime minister claimed today “there is no cut in the National Health Service”, the FactCheck team got to work.
The analysis
Chancellor George Osborne has promised the NHS a real-terms increase of 0.1 per cent a year. It’s an incy-wincy rise, but it does apparently allow him to deliver on his pledge to increase NHS funding.
Yet some argue that this “real-terms rise” doesn’t really stand up.
The government works out future inflation in spending settlements with the help of the so-called GDP deflator.
That means they measure costs in the broader economy, rather than specific costs that the NHS might face – for equipment for example.
The rise in funding planned by the government is “so small” that it’ll be wiped out if – as is currently the case – inflation goes up faster than expected.
Mr Osborne’s current promise is based on forecasts which haven’t been revised since December.
So we asked John Appleby, chief economist at The King’s Fund, to update the figures.
He told FactCheck that on the basis of current GDP deflator figures from 2010/11 to 2014/15, the NHS 2010 spend over the same period is “very slightly less than a real increase overall – something like a 0.25 per cent real cut”.
From 2011/12 to 2014/15 the NHS budget goes like this: -0.47 per cent, +0.16 per cent, +0.07 per cent and -0.01 per cent.
In addition, some NHS spending is earmarked for adult social care – helping the elderly and vulnerable with things like washing and dressing. So that money isn’t strictly for the NHS, as it’s spent by local authorities.
“Leaving these out, the real change in NHS planned spend overall is -1.1 per cent,” Mr Appleby said.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
Those three little letters have caused David Cameron a very big headache.
He was under continual pressure from the right of his party to remove the ringfencing for the NHS, but he knew that it would be politically toxic to go back on his word.
However, with inflation on the up (RPI inflation – that’s the one that includes housing – was 4.8 per cent when we last looked) the meagre 0.1 per cent annual rise his chancellor carved out is not enough to allow the PM to keep his promise to protect the NHS.
David Cameron must know that, and it’s disingenuous of him to claim otherwise.
