NHS braced for Spending Review

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The NHS has enjoyed record funding increases in recent years, but they are now coming to an end. How will the health service cope?
The similarities between the city and NHS are few and far between.
But in recent months health managers have had to act like the most bullish city traders by trying to predict NHS inflation.
Since 2002, the health service has enjoyed record yearly rises of over 7%, leaving the UK health budget standing at over Pfund105bn.
This is triple what it was when Labour came to power.
But now the axe is expected to fall on the huge rises the NHS has been enjoying, as the government unveils its spending plans for the next three years.
And NHS managers are ready. At the turn of the year, Treasury officials gave briefings to government health staff and NHS managers setting out what would be expected.
Clear message
The message was loud and clear - improve productivity because in the future the health service will have to cope with less generous budget increases.
This, of course, was already envisaged. Former NatWest bank chief Sir Derek Wanless, whose 2002 report paved the way for the record rises, had said that from 2008 the budget rises should be reduced to about 4.5% in real terms - that is on top of the rate of inflation.