Chancellor dismisses £4 billion NHS emergency cash call

Philip Hammond has ignored calls from Simon Stevens for an emergency cash injection of £4 billion, saying that those who run public services always predict ‘Armageddon’ before a budget.

Although Hammond hinted that the NHS could get more money to cover the cost of ending the public sector pay freeze for nurses and other workers, he downplayed the need for the £4 billion cash injection demanded by the health service chief.

He also said Stevens failed to meet his side of a bargain in which he pledged to turn around the NHS in return for an extra £10 billion by 2020.

Instead, Hammond is planning to put housebuilding at the heart of the budget, with measures to encourage 300,000 new homes a year.

He is expected to provide £5 billion for housing schemes and underwrite loans worth tens of billions.

Hammond told the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “ We need to get [the NHS] back on track. In the run-up to budget, people running all kinds of services, government departments come to see us and they always have very large numbers that are absolutely essential, otherwise Armageddon will arrive.

“I don’t contest for one moment that the NHS is under pressure. We have been doing some very careful work with the Department of Health, with the NHS, to look at where those pressures are, to look at the capital needs of the NHS, to look at where the particular pressure points around targets are. And we will seek to address those in a sensible and measured and balanced way.”

Simon Stevens said: “As I have told parliament on many occasions, for the next three years we did not get the funding the NHS had requested. So 2018, which happens to be the 70th anniversary of the NHS, is poised to be the toughest financial year.”