Doctors accuse Tories of deception over 'extra £10bn for NHS' claim

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/21/bma-doctors-accuse-tories-lying-extra-10bn-support-nhs-england

Government used accounting tricks to give impression of support but budget will only be up by £4.5bn by 2020-21, BMA claims

Doctors accuse Tories of deception over 'extra £10bn for NHS' claim
Denis Campbell
Sunday 20 March 2016 20.01 EDT

Doctors’ leaders have accused the Conservatives of deceiving the public by giving the NHS less than half the extra £10bn ministers regularly cite as proof of their support for the service.

The government has used a series of accounting tricks to wrongly give the impression of generous backing when in reality it is leaving patient care underfunded and refusing to face up to the NHS’s deepening financial crisis, a report from the British Medical Association claims.

Former Lib Dem minister David Laws said on Sunday that Downing Street dismissed the NHS boss Simon Stevens’s bid for the £15bn-£16bn more he believed the NHS needed as “mad” and unaffordable and told him to make do with much less instead.

The BMA has joined the row over the integrity of the government’s approach to NHS spending with a highly critical analysis of persistent claims made and figures cited by ministers including David Cameron, George Osborne and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt.