Patient care is at risk from lack of new funds in autumn statement, healthcare leaders warn

The government’s failure to commit new funding to the NHS and social care in its autumn statement will put the care of patients at risk, health and social care leaders have warned.

The government was strongly urged ahead of the 23 November statement to revisit its 2015 spending review pledges for health and social care because of the severe pressures across the service.

But the chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Hammond, ignored the calls and repeated the increasingly discredited claim that the government had already committed £10bn (€11.7bn; $12.4bn) extra funding for the NHS by 2020.1

The autumn statement said that the government would honour all …