Chancellor Alistair Darling promises some big changes in his budget speech, a budget that would deal with borrowing and secure a road to economic recovery. It usually takes critics a few days to pick out the hidden costs we all failed to miss in the budget but this time by the end of his speech the nation was already fairly unconvinced. Ultimately we were all left perplexed as to how the government planned to achieve spending cuts of 38bn a year.
Bearing in mind the huge promises it was a budget that was astonishingly underwhelming. These are times when the nation needs help more than ever and especially with a general election not far off, this budget does not provide the reliability Labour needs to prove if they want to stay in power for the next five years.
There were a variety of vague tax rearrangements but the majority of the budget seems to come from efficiency savings and spending cuts. The NHS has been slammed with orders to make huge spending cuts and improve efficiency, making a total of 4.3bn savings each year.
However this is a bite size chunk of the 20bn that NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson says is required the NHS through the years ahead. He said that improving productivity would be key to their success before making any major cuts.
The department of health explained the main targets for spending cuts aiming at driving down the prices of goods and services bought by the NHS, saving up to 1.5bn. They planned on reducing staff sickness absence to save over 500m, make better use of land and buildings to save 70m and reduce their energy use by 60m. They also aimed at improving productivity in staff by 3.5bn, 2.7bn from improved patient care, 1.5bn from reducing unnecessary prescriptions and 2bn in management savings.
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