Ed Miliband has lambasted the Conservatives’ pledge to provide an additional £8bn of health spending a year as akin to trying to “fund the NHS on an IOU”.
The Labour leader was speaking on the day the future of the health service leapt to the top of the political agenda. Miliband announced that if elected his government would provide 3,000 extra midwives to ensure women giving birth have one-to-one maternity care.
Miliband also criticised the surprise announcement from George Osborne in the Guardian on Saturday that the Conservatives would provide an additional £8bn each year above inflation to fill the funding black hole in the health service. The chancellor said his party’s funding pledge demonstrated an “absolute commitment” to meeting the £30bn-a-year funding gap by the end of the decade, as identified by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England.
At the launch of Labour’s health manifesto for England, Miliband said: “We have seen five years of failure and broken promises from David Cameron on the NHS and now he expects the public to believe unfunded promises four weeks before an election.
“Just in January he said, and I quote: ‘The real risk to the NHS is the risk of unfunded spending commitments bringing chaos to our economy, which would wreck our NHS.’
“The truth is you can’t save the NHS if you don’t know where the money is coming from. The bottom line is this: you can’t fund the NHS on an IOU.”
When pressed on whether he could commit Labour to matching the Tories’ £8bn figure, he appeared to decline to do so. “We will always do what is necessary for the NHS. We will never let the NHS down,” he said.
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said Labour were putting the future of the NHS at risk by not matching the Conservative spending plans. “After an incompetent and chaotic response from Labour today about how they would fund the NHS, it’s now clear that Ed Miliband will not match our commitment to provide the NHS with the funding it needs – resources that we will deliver through a stronger economy,” he said.
Miliband unveiled Labour’s own plans in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, on Saturday. He pledged that under Labour a woman would receive care from a designated midwife for the entire labour and birth period. “There is no more important moment for us in relation to the NHS than when we’re bringing a new life into the world.
“At times like that you need to know you’re in safe hands. You need the reassurance of a personal relationship, you need one-to-one care. But we know that too many women are left in labour on their own, creating uncertainty at a time when security is everything.”
The Labour leader said the pledge would be enabled by the £2.5bn “time to care” fund which will train additional doctors, nurses and midwives funded by his party’s proposed mansion tax, a levy on tobacco companies and clamping down on tax avoidance schemes.
He said that meant a “dedicated midwife by your side all the way through to the birth of your child … keeping you secure during the most important journey you’ll ever take”.
The shadow health minister, Liz Kendall, said the pledge would mean one-to-one care, leading to safer births, fewer caesareans, less postnatal depression and a better start in life for babies.
A baby boom and a shortage of midwives has left maternity services stretched, with the National Audit Office raising concerns in 2013 that staff shortages were leading to some maternity units temporarily closing.
A Conservative party spokesman said the government had already increased the number of midwives by more than 2,100 since 2010. “Since 2012, we have been investing and training 2,500 midwives every year to ensure that future mothers have a named midwife overseeing their care,” he said.
Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Scriven said Labour had a shameful record on midwifery when in government, overseeing a critical shortage of staff.
