HEALTH SCHEME COSTING BRITAIN £300 MILLION p.a.

Grey River Argus, 8 October 1949, Page 3

HEALTH SCHEME COSTING BRITAIN £300 MILLION p.a.

LONDON, October 6.

The Minister of Health, Mr Aneurin Bevan, said to-day that he had underestimated the cost of the National Health Service by 100 per cent. Instead of between £130,000,000 and £150,000,000, the estimated first year’s bill was more likely to be £300,000,000. Mr Bevan said this was due principally to the raising of the remuneration above the level at first expected. The National Health Service was not itself an addition to the nation’s total expenditure, but was a gigantic transfer of expense from the private pocket to the public purse.