Blair to spend extra pounds 6bn on NHS

AN EXTRA pounds 6bn is to be announced by Tony Blair for the health service in July, in a dramatic rolling programme of increased spending to tackle the waiting lists and fulfil pledges on the NHS before the next election.

The Prime Minister will mark the 50th anniversary of the NHS with an announcement designed to take the heat out of the attacks on the Government which campaigned on an election pledge to cut waiting lists by 100,000, but has seen them rise by the same amount.

The pounds 2bn year-on-year increases over three years will be on top of the pounds 2bn added to the total budget for health in the 12 months since Labour came to power, and will take the NHS budget through pounds 40bn a year by the time of the next election.

Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, has apologised for the rise in waiting-lists, partly brought about by his decision to give priority to accident and emergency cases during the winter. He knows his job is on the line.

Mr Dobson has persuaded the Prime Minister to give him his backing for the additional money against pressure from the Treasury, and is at present engaged in a battle with it over the final details. Mr Blair is deeply concerned at the soaring waiting-list figures which will show a further rise on Thursday although he has been told the figures will not be as bad as the additional 43,000 predicted.

Ministers believe the trend shows the rise in the numbers waiting is slowing down and the figures will reveal no patients are now waiting more than 18 months as guaranteed in the patients' charter.

Having secured an extra pounds 300m to tackle the winter crisis, Mr Dobson won a pounds 1.2bn increase for the current financial year and an extra pounds 500m in the Chancellor Gordon Brown's spring Budget. A total of pounds 320m was allocated to cutting waiting lists and Mr Dobson will announce that a further pounds 65m is to be spent on moving more elderly patients out of hospital, to release their beds for more surgery cases.

Mr Dobson wants more money for higher pay next year for nurses, who gave him a rough ride at their annual conference last month. The increases for the health service - confirmed by Treasury sources - are part of the radical restructuring of public spending, which is now reaching crunch decisions.

The Comprehensive Spending Review, reaching across all Whitehall departments, is due to finish in a fortnight, but it has run into trouble. Mr Brown has privately complained that ministers have failed to live up to the new culture of extra money in return for modernisation in the Blair government

Many spending ministers have failed to modernise, but have added 10 per cent to their baselines for last year. Treasury sources said Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, had been praised for modernising, but had asked for a higher bid, when he realised his Cabinet colleagues had refused to make cuts.

Those seeking big increases in their budgets include David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, who has warned Mr Blair he could break his "vow" to the 1996 party conference to spend more of Britain's wealth than the Tories on education unless he gets more. John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, wants the Treasury to release around pounds 1bn of council house receipts for housing - an increase on the pounds 800m released this year - and is using a report yesterday on the state of Britain's housing as leverage; Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, has refocused her budget on the poor, but wants more to meet pledges on the Third World.

The Strategic Defence Review is also running into flak from the Treasury in spite of backing from Mr Blair. George Robertson, Secretary of State for Defence, submitted the report to the Cabinet Defence and Overseas Policy committee, with an offer to cut pounds 500m from the total pounds 21bn defence budget. But the Treasury is unpicking the report to seek more savings.