NHS chief says taxes alone can’t fund ailing £160billion-a-year service as he hints it might be time for a ‘private solution’ amid clamour for hospitals to get extra £32bn to get back on track

The way the NHS is funded requires a radical overhaul because it is now too costly to rely on taxes alone, the vice president of NHS England has said.

Wol Kolade highlighted the huge growth in health spending in recent years and warned that taxpayers can no longer afford to fund it at the required rate.

He said budgets had fallen from around £110bn a year when he first joined the board in 2018 to around £165bn now, adding: ‘Where the hell is this going? will it stop? £250 billion? £300 billion?

Mr Kolade, who is also a leading private equity figure, said the country needed a “big conversation” about how the health service is financed and suggested that social insurance or ” some kind of private solution” could play a role.

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His comments come as health leaders make a fresh call for more money and a new study suggests the NHS needs an immediate injection of around £8.5 billion a year over of the next four years.

Leading experts said the money was needed to plug a £32bn funding gap in England and would help tackle issues such as high waiting lists, access to GPs and shortages of workforce.

In the second report from the BMJ Commission on the Future of the NHS, economist and senior associate at the Nuffield Trust, John Appleby, and two colleagues argue that while the government’s recent Spring Budget funding pledges are a At first, they don’t go far. enough.

They said: “In the recent Spring Budget, the Government pledged an extra £2.5 billion for the NHS in England in 2024-25 to maintain day-to-day funding for the health service, with an additional investment of £3 £4 billion over three years to improve productivity through digital transformation.

“These figures, while a start, will certainly not make up for the significant deficit the NHS currently faces.”

Their views were echoed by Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, who said: “While the promises made in the latest budget are a start, they do not go far enough to close the funding gap for services. health.

Unveiled as part of the Budget earlier this month, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed the move would unlock £35 billion in efficiency returns to the health service.

“We have been calling for more capital investment for some time.”

However, in an interview with Private Equity News, Mr. Kolade said: “We basically can’t continue to fund at the rate that we need to.

“When I joined the board in 2018 it was something like £110 billion. This year it’s between £160 billion and £170 billion.

“This kind of growth rate cannot continue. Where the hell is this going to stop? £250 billion? £300 billion?

“At what point do you say, are you going to think about how we deliver this? Is this a mix of social insurance or some sort of private solution? It’s a great conversation.

Mr Kolade became a non-executive director of the NHS Improvement Board in 2018 and vice-chair of NHS England in 2022.

He is also managing partner of London-based private equity firm Livingbridge, which has made a number of investments in the UK healthcare sector.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The Government is fully committed to the NHS as a free public service when needed, which is quicker, simpler and fairer.

“It does not depend on whether care is provided by NHS organisations, which provide the majority of healthcare in the UK, or by the private, voluntary or social sectors.

“We announced in the Budget that the NHS in England would receive a daily funding increase of £2.5 billion this year and an additional £3.4 billion investment in the latest technology from 2025.”

“We are providing the NHS with record funding of almost £165 billion a year by the end of this Parliament, an increase of 13% in real terms compared to 2019-20.”