Responding to the 2025 Budget, Dr Tom Dolphin, chair of BMA council, said:
“This is a tough Budget for the Government, but the mission of putting a severely ailing NHS into long-term recovery goes beyond one difficult day. During the last Labour government our spending on health averaged an increase of 6.8% a year, and waiting lists came down and outcomes improved. This Budget shows health expenditures increasing by just 2.6% a year. Even with ongoing heroic efforts from healthcare staff this is not going to deliver the sort of improvements we saw in the 2000s, especially given the challenge today is far greater.
"These constraints on health spending will have consequences. There has been no allocation given in this Budget on restoring pay and ending disputes with doctors, a measure which would have not only prevented further disruption but kept doctors in the country, making the most of the skills we have already invested in. 4,000 doctors left the country to practice abroad last year. Without a financial plan to keep them, these Budgets represent a penny-wise, pound-foolish attitude.
"That’s because health spending is an investment. Every pound spent in the NHS leads to another four being spent elsewhere in the economy. Investment in buildings, technology and staff delivers repeated benefits the economy as more patients are seen more quickly, leading to a healthier workforce which can then help towards a more productive economy. Doctors are all too acutely aware that it is expensive to be cheap.
"Private partnerships such as the ones promised for new Neighbourhood Health Centres are only dodges around the central problem of lack of investment. Diverting public money into private profit is not the solution to the problem of lack of GP access across the country. The only solution remains sitting down with GPs to deliver a new contract that actually retains and values those GPs we have. GPs will also need to know that the increases to the national living wage for staff announced today will be fully funded rather than send already precarious budgets further into jeopardy.
"Extending the soft drinks levy to milk-derived drinks and increasing alcohol duty in line with inflation are welcome public health measures but alone are not enough. We need to keep making progress to restore the public health grant and investing in critical public health doctors to reverse the decline in population health we have seen over the last decade.
"This was not a Budget that chose to lay better foundations for the NHS. The Government may have survived a tricky fiscal event today, but risk storing up trouble for their future.”
Notes to editors
The BMA is a professional association and trade union representing and negotiating on behalf of all doctors in the UK. A leading voice advocating for outstanding health care and a healthy population. An association providing members with excellent individual services and support throughout their lives.