NHS to receive additional £5.4 billion for COVID-19 response
pharmafile | September 7, 2021 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |
The NHS will receive an extra £5.4 billion over the next six months to support its response to COVID-19 and help tackle waiting lists.
The funding will immediately go towards supporting the NHS to manage the immediate pressures of the pandemic.
This includes an extra £1 billion to help tackle the COVID-19 backlog, £2.8 billion to cover related costs such as enhanced infection control measures to keep staff and patients safe from the virus and £478 million to continue the hospital discharge programme, freeing up beds.
However, this is half the amount health service bodies said is needed to respond to Covid-19 and tackle the backlog caused by the pandemic.
Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said: “The NHS was there for us during the pandemic − but treating COVID patients has created huge backlogs.
“This funding will go straight to the frontline, to provide more patients with the treatments they need but aren’t getting quickly enough.
“We will continue to make sure our NHS has what it needs to bust the COVID backlogs and help the health service build back better from the worst pandemic in a century.”
Health and Social Care Secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “The NHS has been phenomenal as it has faced one of the biggest challenges in its history.
“Today’s additional £5.4 billion funding over the next 6 months is critical to ensuring the health service has what it needs to manage the ongoing pandemic and helping to tackle waiting lists.
“We know waiting lists will get worse before they get better as people come forward for help, and I want to reassure you the NHS is open, and we are doing what we can to support the NHS to deliver routine operations and treatment to patients across the country.”
Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said: “This funding provides welcome certainty for the NHS, which has pulled out all the stops to restore services, while caring for thousands of seriously ill COVID patients requiring hospital treatment during the toughest summer on record.
“This additional investment will enable the NHS to deliver more checks, scans and procedures as well as helping to deal with the ongoing costs and pressures of the pandemic as the NHS heads in to winter.”
Lilly Subbotin
