The range of services available free on the NHS should be reconsidered, financial experts have said, after research suggests that the health service is facing a decade of austerity.
Public funding for health is set to be tight for at least 10 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said. In a report mapping the longer-term financial challenge facing the health service, researchers claim NHS spending to 2015 will be the tightest four-year period in the last 50 years.
The research, funded by the Nuffield Trust, concludes that “serious thought” must be given to NHS spending including reconsidering which services should be freely available or the level of taxation needed to finance the service in the future.
The authors of the study said that continuing the real freeze in English NHS spending between 2015 and 2017 would mean cutting spending on other public services by an average 2.3% a year.
NHS spending in the UK reached 137.4 billion in 2010/11, the authors said, with the spending in England accounting for a quarter of all public spending.
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