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Jeremy Hunt announces new productivity plan while boosting public spending by 1% a year

2024-03-06 00:00:00.0 每日快报-政治原网页

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Mr Hunt said there is a need for a “more productive state not a bigger state”.

He added: “I am keeping the planned growth in day-to-day spending at 1% in real terms. But we are going to spend it better.

“So today I am announcing a landmark public sector productivity plan that restarts public service reform and changes the Treasury’s traditional approach to public spending.”

On the NHS, Mr Hunt said the systems that support its staff are “often antiquated”.

Mr Hunt insisted he wanted better care for patients, value for taxpayers and more rewarding work for its staff.

He said: “Making changes on the scale we need is not cheap. The investment needed to modernise NHS IT systems so they are as good as the best in the world costs ￡3.4 billion.

“But it helps unlock ￡35 billion of savings, 10 times that amount. So in today’s Budget for long-term growth, I have decided to fund the NHS productivity plan in full.”

He added: “We will slash the 13 million hours lost by doctors and nurses every year to outdated IT systems. We will use AI to cut down and potentially cut in half form filling by doctors. We will digitise operating theatre processes allowing the same number of consultants to do an extra 200,000 operations a year.

“We will fund improvements to help doctors read MRI and CT scans more accurately and quickly, speeding up results for 130,000 patients every year and saving thousands of lives, something I know would have delighted my brother Charlie who I recently lost to cancer.”

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt before his Spring Budget on Wednesday (Image: Getty)

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Some parts of the public sector will need to rein in spending to meet Hunt's commitment.

Certain departments - such as health and defence - will require spending increases, which will "almost certainly" mean cuts elsewhere, according to Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Councillor Barry Lewis, County Council Network's (CCN) vice chair, also had concerns.

He said: "While the government have maintained the 1% growth in public spending in 2025/26 and beyond, this would still mean a squeeze on unprotected public services, including local government.

"If this was implemented, this would be concerning for our members, with CCN analysis showing that even if our councils deliver a further ￡1billion of planned savings over the next two years, they would still face a collective funding shortfall of ￡1.1 billion."

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Labour said there were no “specific measures” in the Budget that it would oppose but it is still examining the proposals in detail, a party spokesman said.

Asked if there were any parts of the Budget the party would oppose, he told reporters: “We are still looking at the details, and there’s obviously a lot of measures we are still looking through the detail of.

“We’re not going to oppose for opposition’s sake, and given that many of the policies they seem to be announcing come from our own side, we will be supporting those.

“But at the moment there’s not a specific measure we would say we oppose but we will obviously be looking at the individual measures as they come out.”

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