NHS

The NHS is one of the few winners from Osborne's wide-ranging statement. The Department of Health's headline resource budget will rise from £108.34bn in 2014-15 to £110.37bn, up £2.1bn – a real-terms increase of just 0.1% – in line with the pledge in the 2010 Conservative manifesto and post-election coalition agreement to give the NHS real-terms year on year increases.

The Department of Health's (DH) capital budget for health infrastructure will also rise from £4.65bn to £4.74bn. Details of what that will be spent on will come onThursday when Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, explains where £100bn of infrastructure spending will be going.

The most significant move, though, is the creation of what the DH calls "a £3.8bn pooled health and social care budget... to make sure everyone gets a properly joined up service so they get the care they need from whoever is best placed to deliver, whether that's the NHS or the local authority".

The result should be to drive forward the integration of health and social care in England, a move its many champions sometimes call "the Holy Grail" of health policy; Osborne called it "historic". It should reduce pressure on the NHS by ensuring that those needing help from either service seamlessly receive either kind of support, at or near their homes, to keep them healthier. That should reduce A&E attendances, admissions to hospital and length of stay, especially among the growing frail, elderly population. Unsustainable rising demand on the NHS means the move is long overdue.

Significantly, £3bn of the £3.8bn will come from the DH – £2bn extra – and £800m from theDepartment of Communities and Local Government. But £2bn more of DH funding for social care is also £2bn less for the NHS.