Versus Arthritis responds to the Spring Budget 2024

On Wednesday 6 March the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt MP, outlined the UK Government’s spending and taxation plans for the coming year.  

The Spring Budget mostly focused on spending plans for England, although some announcements affect the whole of the UK.  

Ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, Versus Arthritis called on the Government to provide the right levels of funding to deliver the targets in the Elective Recovery Plan, as well as making sure that the NHS has the right number of staff and hospital beds to tackle long waiting lists.

This would help people with arthritis get the treatment they need, like joint replacement surgery, when they need it.   

What’s new with health and social care?

The government announced an additional £2.5 billion in NHS funding in England for 2024/25 to maintain day-to-day activities.

This will help protect the current level of NHS services from inflationary pressures and from additional costs through new pay deals.

And another additional £3.4 billion has been announced to help the NHS in England improve the technology it uses.     

£430 million of this will be spent on transforming access and services for patients, such as further developing the NHS App so patients can easily access NHS services, arrange virtual appointments and manage their care.  

It is positive that technology in the NHS is being improved, as this could have a real impact on the quality of care people with arthritis receive.

However, we don’t think the small boost in day-to-day funding goes far enough to bring down the large waiting lists. As a result, people with arthritis will continue to wait, many in agony, for the treatment they desperately need. 

Is there additional funding for social care? 

Earlier this year in January, the Government announced an additional £500 million of new funding for councils to support adult and children’s social care services.

We know that this is not enough funding to adequately improve the social care support that people with arthritis receive and are disappointed that the Spring Budget didn’t announce any new social care funding.

As a member of the Care and Support Alliance, we’ll continue to campaign for a better social care system for people with arthritis.  

What about UK life sciences? 

The Chancellor announced £45 million for medical research charities to support medical researchers at the beginning of their career and bolster medical charities’ research portfolios.  

At Versus Arthritis, we have funded over £500m of research over the last few decades and been at the forefront of some of the most important advances in arthritis treatment.

So this is welcome news to us and others medical charities, who struggle to recruit and retain researchers at early stages of the careers.

We would welcome even more spending on arthritis and musculoskeletal research, as we know there is a big underspend here compared the impact of these health conditions.  

Anything on employment support or support for struggling families? 

This time last year, the Government announced new measures to support people with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions return to or remain in work.

Whilst there’s no additional funding for MSK health this year, there were further cuts to National Insurance Contributions.

The Government will cut the main rate of employee National Insurance by 2p from 10% to 8% and will make the same 2p cut to self-employed national insurance to 6p.

These cuts will take effect from 6 April 2024. This will mean those in work will be paying on average around £450 less in National Insurance each year. 

How we think the Government could help people with arthritis

This Spring Budget will do little to improve the lives of people with arthritis or MSK conditions.

The UK waiting lists for Trauma and Orthopaedic treatment have grown to over a million, and many of those people will be living with arthritis, waiting in agony for their surgery, struggling to work and losing their independence.    

We would like to see the Government commit additional ringfenced funding to bring waiting times down for people with arthritis, and support people while they wait for treatment. 

People with arthritis want to remain in work but often struggle to do so without the right support. The Government must support more people with arthritis and MSK conditions to start and stay in work, such as by promoting and improving awareness of programmes like Access to Work.  

Finally, arthritis must be prioritised in national health plans.

This means committing appropriate levels of funding and having a permanent MSK programme in central Government, with dedicated clinical leadership at national and local level.

We're here for you

Things are tough right now for many of us. However you’re feeling right now, you’re not alone. We're here for you. 

You can:

• Call our free helpline.
• Join our online community.
• Get moving with our Let’s Move for Surgery toolkit, designed to help you stay active whilst waiting for or recovering from surgery.