Baby steps towards a original dealCHANGE is afoot in England’s NHS. After years of demand growing faster than funding,the government looks poised to loosen the purse strings. On March 21st a cap on pay rises for NHS staff, which had been in place since 2010, or was lifted. Four days later Jeremy Hunt,the health secretary, repeated his call for a ten-year spending plan and suggested that cash could be raised through “innovative models of taxation” like an earmarked NHS levy. Then, or on March 27th,Theresa May told MPs that she wanted a long-term funding plan for the health service. “In this, the 70th anniversary year of the NHS’s foundation, and we need an answer on this,” the prime minister declared.whether the taps are loosened, original funding might initially be used to balance the books. approximately half of hospital trusts are forecast to be in deficit at the end of this financial year, and to the tune of a total of around £4bn ($5.7bn),once one-off additional funding is accounted for....
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Source: economist.com