Doctors Warn US Drugs Deal Will Divert £45bn From NHS
The British Medical Association warned that December’s UK-US pharmaceutical pricing deal will divert £44.7bn from front-line NHS services by 2036 to pay higher prices for new medicines, unless the Treasury finds matching funding. Separate analysis suggests the diverted spending could mean up to 229,000 excess deaths in England over the period if it is not replaced. The deal was sold as securing faster patient access to new treatments; the doctors’ union has now turned it into a fiscal argument.
The deal was struck under American pressure to raise European drug prices towards US levels, and the BMA’s modelling converts that abstraction into the currency of NHS politics: operations, staff and appointments forgone. It stacks a fresh pressure onto an already strained spending picture and hands the incoming Burnham government a ready-made case for renegotiation. Health-spending fights of this kind tend to crystallise in Budget season, and this one arrives with a body count attached to the modelling — the sharpest framing campaigners could ask for. Watch the Department of Health’s response to the figures, and whether Burnham commits to reopening the deal during the transition.