BHF comment
Budget falls short of giving heart patients a lifeline
Building back better
The Government pledged nearly £6bn of NHS funding to help tackle the vast and growing backlog of elective care, which includes “routine” heart care.The money pledged today is capital funding, which is used for buildings and equipment. Over £2bn of today’s investment has been ring-fenced for the establishment of 100 community diagnostic centres across England, which we called for in our recent report: The Untold Heartbreak.
While this funding is welcome, we believe the Government will not be able to clear the backlog of elective care within the next three years without also having a specific cardiovascular recovery plan. This must outline clear steps on how to grow the NHS workforce to expand cardiovascular care services and properly resource the new diagnostic hubs.
The pace of progress
Investment in science is vital to maintain the pace of progress towards developing new treatments and cures for heart and circulatory diseases.That’s why we were pleased to see Government spending in R&D increase from £15bn to £20bn across the UK by 2024/25. Additionally, we welcome the £95m announced today for the Office for Life Sciences.
This investment will help deliver the government’s Life Sciences Vision, which includes improving the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and its major risk factors, like obesity.
Elsewhere, we were pleased to see the Chancellor recommit to increasing research and development (R&D) funding by £22bn, but it was disappointing that the target to achieve this has been pushed back by two years to 2026-27.
A clear plan for how this will be met by 2027 remains unclear. Analysis from the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) showed that this delay to the £22bn target could mean the UK misses out on more than £11bn in private R&D investment between now and 2027.
We now need to see detailed plans for how the Government will reach its funding targets, in particular its commitment to invest 2.4 per cent of GDP in R&D by 2027.
Preventing disease
The pandemic has highlighted just how important it is to have a healthy and resilient nation. We were therefore disappointed not to see any public health funding announced to help deliver key prevention services.Preventing and treating disease is vital for reducing further unnecessary deaths from heart and circulatory diseases, and lessening the burden on the NHS as it contends with the enormous backlog of healthcare caused by the pandemic.
Failure to invest in public health will harm the Government’s levelling up agenda. It must provide local authorities with a long-term and sustainable solution that will allow them to deliver effective and fair public health services, such as smoking cessation and weight management services.
What we say
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, our Chief Executive, said: “Today’s Budget and Spending Review recognised the immense pressure on the NHS, but ultimately fell short of providing a lifeline for today and tomorrow’s heart patients.“The newly announced £6bn of NHS funding is welcome, but we fear it will be not enough to address the vast backlog of potentially life saving heart care. To do this, we need to see a specific plan for growing our NHS workforce and expanding cardiovascular services. We were also disappointed not to see any further public health funding. Investment in the prevention of disease could make the single biggest difference to the nation’s resilience and heart health.
“The treatments and cures of the future depend on us rocket-fuelling our investment in science. The Government has committed to increased spending, but deadlines have already started to slip. For the UK to truly become a science superpower, we need to see detailed plans for how funding targets will be met, or we risk reversing decades of progress in developing new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat heart and circulatory diseases.”