Residents of the United Kingdom will “almost certainly” need to pay higher taxes in coming years.
The funds are required to help rescue the National Health Service and social care system from crisis.
The Report
These conclusions were made in a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Health Foundation. The report was titled “Securing the future: funding health and social care to the 2030s”. The report looked into the situation of the NHS at the moment and moving through Brexit.
The NHS is currently experiencing its tightest fiscal squeeze it has undergone since its creation more than eight years ago. The report indicates the NHS will urgently require the government to boost its spending in order to keep afloat while providing care for a much higher number of older and sicker patients.
Much-Needed NHS Funding
If the report’s predictions are correct, funding the NHS by way of increased tax system spending would require taxes to increase by 1.6 percent and 2.6 percent of GDP. That works out to somewhere between £1,200 and £2,000 per household.
Both organisations behind the report say that the funding growth rate will need to increase by more than double over the next 15 years to keep up with NHS requirements. This would include meeting the government’s promises to reduce wait times and boost mental health service provision.
Since 2010, the funding growth rate has been about 1.4 percent per year. To keep up with current needs in addition to government promises of future improvements, that would need to increase to between 3.3 percent and 4 percent.
Taxes Will Rise
The report concluded that to pay for the increased NHS funding needs – current and future included – the government will “almost certainly need to increase taxes.”
“If we are to have a health and social care system which meets our needs and aspirations, we will have to pay a lot more for it over the next 15 years. This time we won’t be able to rely on cutting spending elsewhere – we will have to pay more in tax,” said Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS.