May promises over £20 billion to fund UK health service

NHS
NHS
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By Philip Andrew Churm
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Prime Minister Theresa May has promised billions of euros in extra funding for the NHS but critics say it's not enough.

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England’s National Health Service is to be given a boost of almost 23 billion euros, Prime Minister Theresa May has announced.

Speaking in a BBC interview she said outlined the timeframe in which the increase would take place.

"It means that at the end of five years. By 2023-24 there will be 20 billion pounds in real terms being spent on the NHS."

The increase amounts to an average rise of 3.4 percent per year but it is still less than the average annual increase of 3.7 percent the NHS has had over the past 70 years.

The Prime Minister also explained how the increase would be funded.

"That will be through the Brexit Dividend," she said.

"The fact that we're no longer sending vast amounts of money every year to the EU, once we leave the EU. And we as a country will be contributing a bit more."

But critics have questioned the idea of a so-called Brexit dividend”. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, tweeted to say "there is no Brexit dividend".

And the opposition Labour Party said the idea of a Brexit windfall was hypothetical.

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