Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid says he cannot guarantee the government’s plans to raise National Insurance (NI) will be enough to clear the NHS’s backlog.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a 1.25% hike to NI from April 2022 to fund social care reform and the NHS. A total of £36 billion is expected to be raised from the levy, which breaks a manifesto pledge made by the Conservatives in the 2019 election, with £5.4 billion to be spent on the NHS. Speaking to Sky News, Javid said the £1 billion to be spent on the NHS backlog would "massively reduce" the list of people awaiting problems but could not guarantee this would be enough. "No responsible health secretary can make that kind of guarantee," Javid told the broadcast...
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