Tory spending plans mean a “real risk” of widespread charges in the NHS, says Balls

Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, has said that the Tories’ economic plans, which would see public spending to reduced to 35% (a goal they said they’ll achieve by 2019-20) in the next Parliament, means there is a “real risk that a second Tory government will introduce charges” in the NHS.

Balls has made this forecast off the back of figures from 34 countries, which shows that when state spending is reduced to 35% of GDP or below, there extensive charges are introduced in a country’s health service.

This comes after warnings from across the health are profession and from think tanks that the NHS is under a worrying amount of pressure and needs more investment.

Balls explained to the Guaridan exactly the problem the NHS could be facing if the Tories are able to go ahead with their plans:

“In that light it is quite legitimate to ask questions about what the NHS will look like in this world. It is right to point out that all countries that have gone down to this level of public spending have much, much greater degrees of charging for healthcare than the UK does now. We currently have one of the lowest level of charges.

“In my view you cannot go down to such sustained low levels of public spending – the lowest for 70 years – and expect the NHS to remain recognisable. These are the largest cuts over four years since the second world war.”

“Ten years ago in the 2005 Conservative manifesto written by David Cameron, the Tories set out plans for a patient passport that introduced charges for people that wanted to jump the queue, so Cameron and Osborne have got form on introducing charges for basic medical treatments.”

“What George Osborne is proposing represents a real risk to the future of the health service.”