The cost of Brexit to NHS finances could lead to patients being charged for seeing their GP and staying in hospital, Labour has warned. 

Last week, the Labour Party revealed that the Department of Health could face a £10.5 billion blackhole at the end of the decade if Britain voted to leave the European Union. 

Leave campaigners have failed to produce a credible plan for how they would plug this financial gap or properly fund the NHS – and  the Tory chair of the health select committee has described Vote Leave’s comments on the NHS as “untrue”.

Labour is warning that to fill the blackhole in NHS finances a post-referendum Conservative Government, led by Tory Brexiters, would have to either make deeper cuts to the NHS or introduce charges for essential day-to-day health services.

The Chief Executive of Vote Leave last year published proposals to raise £9 billion through the introduction of charges, while Boris Johnson has said people should pay for NHS services.

Charges being advocated by Brexit campaigners would cost patients £70 a year to see their GP and £140 to stay in hospital. 

The warning has been backed by the former Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Clare Gerada, who said Brexit could lead to the NHS “being further privatised by the extreme right of the Tory party”. 

Heidi Alexander MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said:

“This week has exposed the threat to the NHS of a Brexit vote.

“If we leave Europe, most experts agree that the economy will suffer and this would mean an even deeper blackhole in NHS finances. This translates into staff cuts, service closures or charges being introduced.

“A post-referendum Government led by Boris Johnson could mean people turning up at A&E or to see their GP and having to reach for their credit cards. I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think many patients do either. 

“The leave camp needs to come clean with the British public and admit a vote to leave Europe puts the NHS at risk.”

Dr Clare Gerada, practicing GP and former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, added:

“A vote to leave the EU poses a real threat to the future of our NHS - and could lead to it being further privatised by the extreme right of the Tory party. 

 "Boris and his friends don’t believe in our National Health Service and would jump at the chance to make people have to pay to use it. 

"That would be bad for patients and bad for the nation’s health. It would also mean more administrative work for already overstretched staff.

"We need to stop Boris in his tracks - and that means voting remain on 23 June.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Leave campaigners support the introduction of charges in the NHS

Boris Johnson has advocated for charges in the NHS: “If NHS services continue to be free in this way, they will continue to be abused like any free service. If people have to pay for them, they will value them more…this extension of private funds into the NHS would help the Chancellor’s straitened circumstances.”Boris Johnson, The Essential Boris Johnson, 2003

Vote Leave Chief Executive, Matthew Elliott’s organisation the Taxpayers’ Alliance last year outlined plans to introduce £9 billion of charges in the NHS, including: 

-  £10 prescription charge

-  £20 GP consultation charge

-  £20 daily ‘hotel’ charge for overnight hospital stays

Source: Taxpayers’ Alliance, Spending Plan, March 2015

Under the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s plan:
-  The average cost of staying in hospital would be £140(average length of stay in hospital in the UK is seven days) Source: NHS Confederation, Key statistics on the NHS

-  The average cost of seeing a GP per patient per year would be £70 (The estimated average consultation rate per person per year for a GP in England is 3.49 meaning the tax on GP visits would on average cost someone £69.80 a year.) Source: Nuffield Trust, Fact or Fiction? Demand for GP appointments is driving the ‘crisis’ in general practice