Boris Johnson's $2.1b for NHS gets mixed reception

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the country's "strong economic performance" has created an additional 1.8 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) to fund the National Health Service, on top of an annual budget increase announced by his predecessor Theresa May.

The money works out as around 3.5 million pounds per week, which Johnson said enables the service, known as the NHS, "to buy vital new kit and confirm new upgrades for 20 hospitals across the country".

During the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, Johnson said that leaving the European Union, a process he has vowed to complete by the end of this October, would release an additional 350 million pounds per week for the NHS, rather than money being sent to pay for European institutions.

But the government's own spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has warned that a no-deal Brexit, which would see the UK leave the 28-member bloc without any alternative trade or legislative measures in place, would plunge the nation into recession.

Political opponents and health sector organizations gave the proposals a mixed reception.

Labour Party shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said years of Conservative "smash and grab raids" on NHS funding had put patient safety at risk, adding that the new money falls "significantly short of what's needed to provide quality, safe care to patients".

He added that the consequences of a no-deal Brexit just before winter, the NHS's busiest time of year, would be "catastrophic" and "put lives at risk. That is the gamble that Boris Johnson is taking this October, November".

Judith Jolly, health spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, who oppose any form of exit from the EU, said the prime minister's pledge "will not be worth the paper it's written on" under a no-deal Brexit.

Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health think tank, said the money was welcome but only a fraction of what was needed.

"Nobody should expect shiny new hospitals in their towns any time soon," he said. "This is a welcome down payment on the staggering 6 billion pounds needed to clear the backlog of NHS maintenance but it will only be a fraction of what it would cost to really upgrade 20 hospitals."

Policy director of Cancer Research UK Emma Greenwood said the funding would go "some way to address the immense strain" the NHS is under but said additional support was needed for training, a sentiment echoed by the Royal College of Nursing's chief executive Dame Donna Kinnair, who welcomed the money for colleagues "who have to work in cramped and outdated conditions".

"However," she added, "after this announcement, nursing staff will look to the prime minister with even greater expectation of addressing the workforce crisis."