Newcastle’s hospitals are expected to be given funding in this week’s Budget to help cut NHS waiting lists.
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Freeman Hospital, is set to be among the first areas to benefit from new funding aimed at reversing what the Treasury has branded a “ decade of neglect and underinvestment” in the health service.
While it has not been confirmed at this stage how much money will be coming to Newcastle, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce £1.5 billion for new surgical hubs and scanners and £70 million for radiotherapy machines as part of a “significant uplift” in investment.
Ahead of her first Budget on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said the NHS would receive funding to deliver an extra 40,000 elective appointments per week.
In September it was announced that a “crack team” of medics would be sent to implement reforms in Newcastle, with those squads due to be dispatched from next week to hospitals in a bid to reduce long waiting lists in parts of the country with the highest levels of economic activity.
ChronicleLive reported last month that the city’s hospitals had 102,762 people on their elective waiting lists – a number which has fallen from a peak of almost 110,000 a year ago, but has increased from 99,026 in February this year.
The Treasury called the new investment, which is also expected to benefit the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, an “integral step in reducing the waiting list and puts the NHS on course to meet the commitment that 92% of people wait less than 18 weeks to start treatment”.
Ms Reeves said, “Our NHS is the lifeblood of Britain. It exemplifies public services at their best, there for us when we need it and free at the point of use, for everyone in this country. That’s why I am putting an end to the neglect and underinvestment it has seen for over a decade now.
“We will be known as the government that took the NHS from its worst crisis in its history, got it back on its feet again and made it fit for the bright future ahead of it.”
Labour launched a national consultation last week on how to reform the NHS.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting added: “Our NHS is broken, but it’s not beaten, and this Budget is the moment we start to fix it.
“The Chancellor is backing the NHS with new investment to cut waiting lists, which stand at an unacceptable 7.6 million today. Alongside extra funding, we’re sending crack teams of top surgeons to hospitals across the country, to reform how they run their surgeries, treat more patients, and make the money go further.”
