The King's Fund responds to the Autumn Statement

Commenting on the 2022 Autumn Statement, Richard Murray, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund said: 

‘The additional £3.3 billion funding for the NHS budget is important recognition from the government that the health service is on its knees trying to meet demand and keep patients safe. However, with NHS funding on a knife-edge, it will force the service to focus solely on its top priorities and go further on an already ambitious efficiency programme.  
 
‘We warmly welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to a workforce plan with independently verified projections for staff numbers over the next 15 years, which means that health and care services can plan to train, recruit and retain the staff they need in future. We hope the necessary resources will also be put in place to meet these needs. 
 
‘While it appears capital funding is protected in cash terms with inflation at 11.1 per cent, the government will not be able meet its plans to maintain and improve NHS buildings, equipment and IT, and will need to cut back its ambitions.  
 
‘The significant additional funding announcement for social care indicates the government’s recognition of the perilous state of the sector. However, increases to the national living wage, hikes in energy prices and ongoing inflationary pressures will all add to social care providers costs. It also remains unclear how much of the additional funding may have to come from council tax rises and where today's proposals leave local authority finances overall.  

‘What we do know is that part of this extra funding is coming from further delay to the much-needed reforms on how we pay for adult social care. This is disappointing and the delay to the extension to the means test and a new capped-cost model will leave many thousands of families missing out on this promised new support.’