Budget 2026: what it means for the NHS

SOS NHS coalition response to the Autumn Budget 2026.

This Autumn Budget was an opportunity for Andy Burnham’s government to show that their words on fixing the NHS crisis would be matched with meaningful action. Yet they have refused to deliver any increased investment into our struggling health service, in a devastating blow for NHS patients and staff.

Waiting lists of 7.37 million and 12-hour A&E waits have risen back to the levels of August 2025. 50,000 patients a month admitted from A&E are waiting over 12 hours on trolleys for a hospital bed and 3,300 patients are experiencing ‘corridor care’ every day, causing rising risk of harm and the avoidable deaths of over 300 patients weekly.

This is the result of the disastrous strategy of previous governments who also failed to address the decade and a half of real terms cuts that our health service has faced. We have had a series of ministers repeating the misleading claim that the NHS has ‘record funding’, when there is in fact massive cumulative deficit and less money being spent in relation to medical need, with a significant proportion being lost in shareholder profits (32% in the case of eye care) and historic PFI debt.

It has also been reported that the government is set to cut funding for NHS buildings and equipment, as capital budgets are likely to be slashed in order to fund the government’s £15 billion defence investment plan. This comes at a time when NHS Trusts across the country are already being forced to implement devastating cuts which are seeing thousands of NHS jobs axed.

This lack of new funding is also happening within a context where the government has committed to a deal with the US on drug pricing that will strip £44.7bn out of the NHS budget between now and 2036 to increase profits for pharmaceutical companies. Without action to replace that funding, researchers estimate over 200,000 additional NHS patients will lose their lives across the coming decade. With no new money for the NHS in this budget, the urgency for Burnham to review and scrap that deal is greater than ever.

The government is using the so-called “fiscal rules” as a justification for not investing in public services. These unnecessary and arbitrary treasury rules prevent the government from making bold decisions to address the cost of living crisis and improve people’s lives.

The truth is that investing in the nation’s health will yield results for both wellbeing and growth. It will create better care and more rewarding work for NHS workers. It will provide support for the millions of people currently out of the labour market due to ill health to be able to get back into work. As Lord Darzi said in his landmark review, it’s not an issue of whether we can afford the NHS, but more whether we cannot afford not to have it and fund it properly.

Andy Burnham’s promise of a National Care Service is welcome and greatly needed. But patients simply cannot wait several years for change to come. Improving community and social care support is a matter of urgency as this would in turn greatly improve patient flow through hospitals and decrease the huge death toll from delayed admissions and overcrowding.

It’s positive that the government has moved to temporarily increase taxes on the banks. But we need them to go much further in taxing wealth and corporations in order to generate desperately needed funds for public services.

The Chancellor’s recognition that we need to have NHS patient data held in the UK is welcome - but the true test of this government’s commitment to data sovereignty and patient trust will be their imminent decision on whether they move to end Palantir’s role in our NHS.

A couple of weeks before the Budget our SOS NHS coalition wrote to Andy Burnham urging him to fund the NHS in line with medical need, reinvest in prevention and public health, and stop the corporate sector - private healthcare, big pharma and big tech - from extracting excessive profits out of our NHS.

We are disappointed and concerned that the government has ignored the voices of NHS patients and staff who are crying out for these changes.

As a coalition we will continue holding ministers to account, exposing the true scale of the crisis in our NHS, and fighting for the lifesaving investment our health service desperately needs.