The October 28 Budget revealed that the Department of Health and Social Care's capital budget is being cut by £1bn over the next four years, as the government moves capital to bolster funding for the military and the "Defence Investment Plan". The capital budget is being cut by up to £300m each year to 2029/30.

A report in the Health Service Journal (HSJ) explains that in June the government said that the DHSC's capital budget would be reduced by 1 per cent, around £580m over four years, to partially fund the defence investment plan. However, this raid has now nearly doubled. The Budget document said that £3bn of the remaining £4.7bn needed for defence would come from "further reducing departmental capital budgets", by another 1 per cent from 2027/28 to 2029/30. This will mean that major capital health projects in the coming years, particularly the New Hospital Programme, would have to be cut back in the face of this reduction.

King's Fund policy director Siva Anandaciva has said that any raid of NHS capital budgets to fund the defence plan would "likely lead to further delays" to the New Hospital Programme, HSJ reports. Hiba Sameen, lead economist at the Health Foundation, further explained: "After years of underinvestment, reducing funding for buildings, equipment and technology risks undermining the productivity gains needed to improve care and cut waiting times."

In addition, the Nuffield Trust chief executive Thea Stein said today's figures "confirm that soaring inflation will wipe at least £1bn from next year's NHS budget in real terms" compared to what was promised last year.

A published comment on the HSJ article pointed out: "The NHS is already catastrophically short of capital per worker. The budget is already far too small even to recover historic maintenance backlogs."

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