Nigel, the following is from the link you provided.

"During the period of austerity that followed the 2008 economic crash, the Department of Health and Social Care budget continued to grow but at a slower pace than in previous years. Budgets rose by 1.4 per cent each year on average (adjusting for inflation) in the 10 years between 2009/10 to 2018/19, compared to the 3.7 per cent average rises since the NHS was established."

We do need to have a grown up discussion about NHS funding. Sadly that does not seem likely to happen during my lifetime. We just carry on in this country,going from one government term to another, without addressing long term problems. Nearly everything is geared to short term solutions.

The recent series on the Blair/Brown years briefly mentioned NHS funding. Brown wanted to try to come up with a long term solution to funding, rather than just bunging money at it periodically to try and solve problems in the short term.