NHS needs extra £3bn to avoid rationing care, Reeves is warned

Call for cash to cover unexpected costs adds to chancellor's woes

- Denis Campbell Health policy editor

NHS bosses in England want an emergency injection of £3bn to cover unexpected costs and have told ministers patients will wait longer for treatment and hospitals will start rationing care without it.

Their move is a fresh problem for Rachel Reeves as she tries to find ways to fill an estimated £30bn hole in the UK's finances in her budget.

Hospital chiefs say without the cash they will have to cancel weekend and evening surgery sessions, which give patients on waiting lists faster care. They are also threatening to stop doing procedures of "low clinical effectiveness", such as removing painful bunions, which can restrict mobility, because they are not a good use of limited resources.

The £3bn is needed to cover NHS redundancies, strike action by doctors and higher drug prices, and is likely to cause consternation in a government desperately short of cash.

The NHS is already due to receive £196bn of the £211bn health budget for England this year. However, health service leaders argue that all three cost pressures they want covered have arisen since their funding settlement for 2025-26 was finalised.

Labour's pledge to cut waiting lists will become even harder to deliver without the £3bn, according to the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, which represent the 215 health trusts in England, in what ministers will view as a thinly veiled threat to scupper a key voter promise.

The waiting list for people awaiting non-urgent care within 18 weeks remains stubbornly high. It stood at 7.6m procedures and appointments when Labour won power in July 2024. But after falling for six months it has risen again in the past three months and is stuck at 7.4m, despite Labour's claim to have delivered 4m "extra" NHS appointments while in office.