Labour calls for more funding for the NHS to tackle the UK’s productivity crisis. Official statistics reveal that the ability to work of 1.5 million people is being affected by health service waiting times.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to use his fiscal showpiece next month to unveil measures aimed at getting more than half a million ‘economically inactive’ people back to work, but the focus of measures that have been floated has been on getting over-50s who have retired early back to the workplace, including through tax breaks.
In a letter to the Chancellor, his Labour shadow Rachel Reeves said the NHS was ‘on its knees’ and the health of the nation ‘is strongly tied to the health of our economy’.
She cited figures showing NHS waits were costing the Treasury £700 million a year in lost tax revenue and businesses £14 million a week in lost income, a combined £1.4 billion a year. Ms Reeves urged Sunak to scrap the non-dom tax loophole and use the money instead to fund an expansion of the NHS workforce.
Labour wants the Chancellor to double the number of district nurses qualifying from 700 to 1,400 a year; train 5,000 new health visitors a year; and create an extra 10,000 nursing and midwifery clinical placements every year.
Steve Webb, a former Lib Dem pensions minister, warns that attempts to lure people who have retired early back to work are misguided. He says the focus should be on improving the NHS to get those with ‘long-term sickness’ back into work.
The report highlights that almost half (45%) of the 630,000 economically inactive are aged under 50 and early retirement ‘explains none of the increase in inactivity since the start of the pandemic’.
The number of ‘long-term sick’ has risen by more than 353,000. The report notes that people previously deemed ‘short-term sick’ are now becoming ‘long-term sick’ because of delays in receiving treatment.
A second report warns waiting lists will start to fall only from the middle of next year because hospitals are failing to deliver on operations and appointments. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests the number of patients waiting for care will ‘more or less flatline’ for the next 12 months.
Rachel Reeves’ letter to Jeremy Hunt shows that more than 1.5 million believe that their wait for NHS treatment is negatively affecting their work. Eleven percent say they have stopped working altogether, while 9% report going on long-term sick leave.
Reducing waiting lists will help growth, with an NHS that isn’t under such enormous strain allowing more people to work in their jobs and contribute to economic growth.
»Jeremy Hunt told to pump more money into NHS to solve the UK’s dire productivity crisis«
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