David Cameron ordered to stop saying NHS spending is up

David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have been ordered to stop claiming that NHS spending has increased after the official statistics watchdog found health funds had fallen.

Mr Hunt, the Health Secretary, should “clarify” claims that expenditure on the NHS had risen in “real terms” every year under the Coalition, the UK Statistics Authority said.

The chairman of the authority, Andrew Dilnot, issued the rebuke after upholding a complaint by Labour about statements by the Prime Minister and other senior Tories.

Labour demanded that Mr Cameron correct his “misleading boasts” about protecting NHS resources.

Mr Dilnot’s letter will be a blow to Mr Cameron, who repeatedly promised to protect the NHS in the run up to the last general election and in numerous public statements since.

The health service is seen as one of the Conservatives’ most vulnerable policies after sweeping reforms to the structure of the NHS met with widespread opposition from medical professionals.

The reforms eventually became law earlier this year, but only after a bruising fight that forced an unprecedented “pause” in the progress of the Bill through Parliament.

Labour complained to the UK Statistics Authority about various statements made by the Prime Minister, Mr Hunt and the Conservative Party claiming “real-terms”, above-inflation increases in spending on the NHS under the Coalition.

In a letter to Mr Hunt, which was copied to the Cabinet Secretary, Mr Dilnot said a detailed analysis of the best-available Treasury data suggested that real-terms health spending was lower in 2011/12 than in 2009/10.
At best, he concluded, because of the small size of the changes and uncertainties surrounding them, it might be fairer to say spending had “changed very little” under the Coalition.

That was despite the Health Secretary telling the Commons in October that "real-terms spending on the NHS has increased across the country".

The Conservative Party website also stated that the Government had increased the NHS budget "in real terms in each of the last two years".

Mr Dilnot wrote: “In light of this, I should be grateful if the Department of Health could clarify the statements made.”
Andy Burnham, Labour’s shadow health secretary, demanded that Mr Cameron appear in the Commons to correct his “misleading boasts”.

“David Cameron famously promised he would cut the deficit, not the NHS,” Mr Burnham said. “We now have it in black and white: he has cut the NHS, not the deficit. The Prime Minister must come to the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity and correct the record.”

Mr Dilnot said he accepted that there were “questions of definition” and that different sources, including the Department of Health's annual accounts and Treasury public expenditure figures were “not necessarily exactly the same”.

But he said the authority’s calculations were based on what he considered “the most authoritative source” of national statistics on the subject - the Treasury's Public Spending Statistics.

Those figures had been cited in a previous Department of Health press release in July 2012, he noted.

“On the basis of these figures, we would conclude that expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9722661/David-Cameron-ordered-to-stop-saying-NHS-spending-is-up.html

About time they were pulled up on their lies.

Labour never lied about anything then? I expect the tories lied about things, labour lied about things, why are you so one sided? Admit it, none are whiter than white so give it a rest with your continual carping about one particular party while totally ignoring the faults of the other!

Yawn