Tax rises fears as proposal for 360,000 extra NHS staff 'underfunded'

The National Health Service has failed to plan how it will pay the wages of the 360,000 extra staff it intends to hire, the government says report. The committee's (PAC) report warns that it raises fears of tax rises.

Proposals to boost the NHS with hundreds of thousands of extra staff over 15 years are «unfunded and cost free», says report released Tuesday. .

Although the government has set aside £2.4 billion «to cover training costs» for the first five years, there is no plan for how staff salaries, which will cost billions of pounds a year, will be funded, MPs said.

«The real cost to the taxpayer of the plan will certainly be much higher than the amounts allocated so far,» the report said.

«It is not cheap to fill gaps in the NHS»

Dame Meg Hiller, Labour Party The MP chairing the committee told The Telegraph it was a «ticking time bomb for the government after the general election.»

She added: «When you do the math, it's clear that a small price to pay for early learning is hardly included in the cost of the plan.

“All these employees will receive a salary. Filling gaps in the NHS doesn't come cheap.»

She added that trainees were «taking the plunge» with no guarantee of a fully paid job on entry.

The NHS budget was £152 billion in 2022-23 and accounts for «about 40 per cent of the daily budget expenditure of Whitehall departments», Dame Meg said, adding that hospitals are «given less money than they need to keep staff safe as it So.”

“The role of the PAC is to look at the underlying figures and try to develop a Get Well Soon plan for the NHS.”

The report also accuses the NHS of making «highly optimistic» and «highly questionable» assumptions about some staff retention models.

They have outlined plans to retain 130,000 staff over the next 15 years on a «neutral» basis. who, with the current nine percent turnover rate, are expected to leave.

Call for more clarity

“We need more clarity,” Dame Meg said.

«You can understand that the government is not going to make a commitment for 15 years, but there needs to be more stability and certainty for hospitals to be able to plan.»

PAC asked NHS England to give it the «full cost» of the plan calculated for 15 years.

Professor Julian Redhead, NHS England's clinical director for acute and critical care, said: at any point in its history and with thousands of beds occupied every day.

“The NHS has committed to delivering annual savings of £12 billion by 2024–25 — all on more than 100,000 full-time positions. is vacant.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The NHS employs a record number of staff and our historic long-term workforce plan, backed by more than £2.4 billion, will train, retain and recruit staff. Hundreds of thousands more staff will provide a sustainable base for the NHS workforce into the future.»