Predictions that the NHS is facing disaster have been issued so often that people no longer pay much attention. This time there is unanimity. Even normally government-friendly experts are in agreement, and for good reasons (1).
Since 2010 the NHS budget has been almost static, while the UK population has increased by two and a half million and is predicted to grow by 440,000 a year over the next ten years, with a growing proportion living longer and having more long-term illnesses (2). So it is no surprise that NHS hospitals in England look likely to have overspent their 2015-16 budgets by £2.5bn and that even so care quality is now seriously declining.
