NHS Providers has urged the chancellor to make good on his personal commitment that the health service will have what it needs to deal with the costs of COVID-19 as he finalises his spending review in the next few days.

In a letter to Rishi Sunak ahead of the 25 November spending review, the organisation which represents all of England's NHS hospital, ambulance, community and mental health providers, says the health and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of patients is at risk.

The letter argues that the latest NHS performance figures, published yesterday, show that the health service is facing two major, new, COVID-19 generated, pressures which must be addressed as quickly as possible:

• a rapidly growing backlog for routine planned surgery
• a deeply worrying rise in demand for mental health services

The note explains that hospitals need more beds and greater capacity to carry out diagnostic tests, and mental health trusts need additional support to treat large numbers of new patients created by the current COVID-19 crisis.

Trust leaders are deeply worried that if the spending review fails to allocate the extra money to fund this capacity in 2021/22, the health and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of their patients is at risk.

   

It says trust leaders are deeply worried that if the spending review fails to allocate the extra money to fund this capacity in 2021/22, the health and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of their patients is at risk. The letter also says that this funding needs to be announced on the 25th November to give trusts the time they need to plan ahead.

It emphasises that – as yesterday's performance data showed – the NHS performs well when it is given the support and resources it needs, for example by meeting the very stretching September target to restore routine surgery after the first wave of the pandemic.

But the letter says trusts need more support in the year ahead to meet these new COVID-19 generated challenges that were never envisaged in the NHS' financial settlement set out in 2018, and urges the chancellor to meet the pledge he made to the House of Commons and allocate the extra £3-4bn involved.

It also makes the point that investing in increased NHS capacity and resilience also reduces the risk of further national lockdowns and the associated economic harm.

Notes

Speaking to the House of Commons on 11 March 2020 the chancellor said:

"First, whatever extra resources our NHS needs to cope with coronavirus – it will get. So, whether its research for a vaccine, recruiting thousands of returning staff, or supporting our brilliant Doctors and Nurses……whether its millions of pounds or billions of pounds……whatever it needs, whatever it costs, we stand behind our NHS."