CONSERVATIVE Prime Minister May’s announcement for an extra £20 billion pounds by 2023-24 for the NHS on its 70th birthday, at first sight, is undoubtedly good news.

May initially suggested it was a Brexit dividend. Yet by Monday, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt was refusing to tell us where the money was coming from, suggesting that the Brexit dividend was not enough and that we should wait for the budget. May has also said that she wanted a 10-year NHS plan addressing efficiencies and better cancer and mental health provision.

What does this all mean?

Experts suggest that this is not enough money. The sum announced by May is a 3.3 per cent per year real terms increase. Historical annual spending increases have averaged 3.7 per cent so this is not revolutionary and will continue our steady decline.

Many health economists suggest we need to spend at least an additional four per cent per year in order to start fixing the NHS. This is a serious amount of money which will have to be funded by increases in tax and borrowing.

Brexit dividends, if they exist, will not kick in until after 2023 as we will still be involved in divorce proceedings.

What does this mean in terms of patient care? Let us focus on mental health.

Many mental health patients are still being sent hundreds of miles for treatment, leading to isolation and therefore longer recovery times. In February this year, 55 per cent of placements ie 355 patients were sent at least 100km from their home. One individual was shipped from Oxford to Inverness in Scotland. A third of these patients spent over three months in their out-of- area placement.

Despite Conservative government promises, the latest figures show almost no change since 2016 despite Hunt’s pledge to ban the practice by 2020. Since Hunt’s promise, the number of mental health beds has declined by 200.

Meanwhile, our mental health units have shown a dramatic rise in incidents involving restraint of patients leading to injuries.

If we are going to get the NHS we need, at the levels of Germany or France, then we have to pay more in tax.

There is some cross-party consensus on the Lib Dem policy of increasing income tax by one pence to pay for the NHS. There is no substitute for hard cash, and without it we are going nowhere.

The NHS has announced plans to have a doctor-led emergency hub at Andover Hospital, yet without money, it will end up as our Minor Injuries Unit did some years back: closed or on reduced hours.

Luigi Gregori, Charlton Road, Andover.