An open war of words has broken out between the health chief and the prime minister after No.10 claimed that the Government has given the NHS more money than it asked for.
NHS chief Simon Stevens said it was unhelpful of Prime Minister Theresa May to deny there is a gap in NHS funding.
The war of words comes after the PM was accused of being “in denial” about the crisis in hospitals.
In front of MPs last week, the NHS England boss accused the PM of “stretching” the truth over extra cash given to hospitals and GPs.
Stevens directly contradicted comments May made about the NHS “getting more money” than it needed.
Apparently taunting the PM, the NHS boss said the health service was “quite different” to the criminal justice system” she was previously in charge of.
May said: “We asked the NHS a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years in terms of its plan for the future and the funding that it would need. They did that, we gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more funding than they required. So funding is now at record levels for the NHS, more money has been going in.”
Stevens hit back saying: “It’s right that by 2020 NHS England will be getting an extra £10billion over the course of six years. I don’t think that’s the same as saying we’re getting more than we asked for over five years because it was a five-year forward view, not a six-year forward view. And over and above that we’ve obviously had a spending review negotiation in the meantime and that has set the NHS budget for the next three years and it’s a matter of fact, it’s not news, I’ve said it previously to select committee back in October that like probably ever part of the public service we got less than we asked for in that process and so I think it would be stretching it say that the NHS has got more than it has asked for.”
