Spring Budget: What is means for health and social care

Bruce Potter, Chairman at Blake Morgan and a specialist in the health sector, said: “The Chancellor has, in amongst everything else in the budget, signalled he knows all is not well in the health and social care space, but he has little headroom (in his opinion) to do much more than alleviate the symptoms – not pay for cures.

“He would have been pilloried if he had made no supporting gesture to relieve the social care funding gap.  £2bn is quite a gesture - but it is quite an issue, and could be seen as expensive sticking plaster not a cure.

The other gestures towards supporting A&E with £ 100m to support GP triage (acting as a first stage filter),and supporting those rare beasts,robust STPs, with a £325m capital fund, will not promote a radical and rapid recovery. Mr Hammond (and Mr Hunt) no doubt hope these financial painkillers will bat these issues down the road until the larger (inevitable) wide-ranging review kicks off.”