Chancellor Rachel Reeves (pictured) has announced £300m of investment in technology across the National Health Service (NHS) and to improve patient service.
Addressing Parliament in her Budget speech, Reeves also announced an efficiency drive across the NHS with savings redirected to frontline services.
The details came alongside an Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimate that the July and November five-day resident doctors’ strikes are estimated to have cost £500m.
Health spending increase
Overall, the Budget documents reveal health and social care spending will increase 2.4% on average from 2025-26 to 2028-29.
It will climb to £231.2bn in the financial year 2028-29, from £221.3bn in 2027-28, £211.4bn in 2026-27, £202.5bn and in 2025-26.
This will mean the final year figure will be £40bn more than the £191.4bn spent in 2024-25.
In terms of new spending commitments, Reeves committed £300m of investment in technology to improve patient service and 250 new neighbourhood health centres.
She said this meant the NHS “expanding more services into communities, so that people can receive treatment outside of hospitals and get better, faster care where they live”.
Reeves added more than 100 of these will be delivered by 2030 including in Birmingham, Truro and Southall.
But Reeves also announced an efficiency drive across all areas of government.
“At this Budget I will find a further £4.9bn of efficiencies by 2031, getting rid of police and crime commissioners, cutting the cost of politics and local government and selling government assets that we no longer have any use for,” Reeves continued.
“These savings will be required across government, but for our National Health Service I will reinvest all of these savings into the care that people rely on – more nurses, more GPs, more appointments.”
