As Britain prepares to mark the 70th birthday of the NHS, healthcare has become the most pressing worry for British adults. As a result, dealing with its immediate and longer term funding gaps has risen up the political agenda. But while that means there is now a political consensus that the NHS needs greater funding, actually delivering change remains a huge challenge. Large sums are involved and the government’s room for manoeuvre is limited. A decade of austerity means much less scope to cut other areas of public spending. While tax rises look inevitable, the government’s parliamentary margins are extremely narrow. So how big does the NHS’s 70th birthday present need to be? How should that money be raised in a way that is fair within and across generations? And would there be a majority in parliament for any tax rises? At an event at its Westminster headquarters the Resolution Foundation presented new analysis setting out options for increasing NHS funding in this parliament. Leading politicians from both of the major parties offered their thoughts on how we might fix the NHS crisis, before an audience Q&A with leading pollster Ben Page.
