‘Where’s our money’: Test and trace under scrutiny as NHS funding dries up

Three leading health think tanks have warned that the NHS might not be around to celebrate its 100th anniversary without investment, despite public support for it remaining “rock solid”.

The King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust said the NHS is the “jewel in the country’s crown” but the organisations warned that the service faces “huge challenges”.

In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and the leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties – Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey, the organisations said the NHS has “endured a decade of underinvestment” and criticised politicians for an “addiction to short-termism and eye-catching initiatives” which will not help the service in the long run.

“Seventy-five years after its creation, the National Health Service is in critical condition.

“Pressures on services are extreme and public satisfaction is at its lowest since it first began to be tracked 40 years ago”, the letter reads.

“We urge you to make the next election a decisive break point by ending years of short-termism in NHS policy-making… promising unachievable, unrealistically fast improvements without a long-term plan to address the underlying causes of the current crisis is a strategy doomed to failure.”

Test and Trace

In March 2021, a report by a Westminster spending watchdog found Dido Harding’s test and trace system has swallowed up “unimaginable” amounts of taxpayers’ money with no evidence of any measurable difference on the progress of the coronavirus pandemic.

The report said NHS test and trace must “wean itself off” its reliance on private-sector consultants, after figures showed it was still employing around 2,500 in early February on an estimated daily rate of £1,100 a head – with the highest-paid individual costing taxpayers £6,624 a day.

Despite its £23 billion budget in its first year of operation, test and trace failed in its task of preventing the second and third lockdowns, found the cross-party House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

And there was still no clear evidence of its effectiveness in driving down Covid-19 infection rates.

“Corrupt and cruel”

Letting rip on the 75th anniversary of the NHS, Carol Vorderman dubbed the Tories “corrupt and cruel” for its mismanagement of the health service, saying the service “deserves better”.

Watch the clip in full below:

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.