Gains to the NHS budget look set to be wiped out by inflation, according to the country's top health think-tank. A tough assessment by the King's Fund warned that although the Department of Health won a 0.1% real-terms increase for the NHS in the Comprehensive Spending Review, the gains on paper could fail to materialise because of rising prices. Professor John Appleby, the fund's chief economist who carried out and updated the Wan-less review for the Department of Health, said: 'It now seems likely that inflation may eat into or even reverse the small real-terms increase in the NHS, going on the latest inflation forecasts by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR).'
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