If this were the true issue, the excess deaths would have been starting at peak Covid hospitalization. In fact the opposite is true…
That said, particularly on any bureaucracy- more money doesn’t solve issues. In fact, more money often makes more bureaucracy. Obviously that’s not only the case, but it’s one I’d seriously consider here.
On bureaucracy - a health service requires administration, so any health funding can be described as "more money for a bureaucracy". The evidence shows that I direct public service like the NHS - concentrating on building hospitals, hiring doctors and nurses and making people well - involves somewhat less administrative costs than using an indirect insurance system (like most European countries, Canada etc) and much less than the dysfunctional private system in America https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2013.1327
I agree more money doesn't solve the issue, especially as so much money was wasted on Covid testing and private beds that were never used.
However in my lifetime the difference in healthcare spending between New Labour and Conservative has been noticeable.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?end=2...
In some sense, the UK became poorer than the other European countries it'd normally be compared to at the end of the previous New Labour government when the financial crisis hit and just never really recovered from that. It's possible there is no obvious way out anymore - everyone being poorer means less means less money for them to spend on consumer products and services and less tax revenue the government to spend on things like healthcare and infrastructure, and all of that means less businesses interested in setting up in the country (for reasons other than low taxes anyway) and less tax revenue, less well paying jobs... it's a vicious circle to be stuck in.
Even before that happened, the New Labour-era spending was obviously unsustainable at the level of tax they were willing to charge. Despite the economy booming and a bunch of NHS infrastructure spending being moved off government books via expensive PFI programs the national debt went up consistently as a proportion of GDP year after year. Afterwards the Tories made a big fancy show of austerity and cutting back on government spending (and to be fair it did eliminate the deficit like they promised, for a while anyway) but even their big scary austerity program only froze the proportion of GDP spent on healthcare for a while.
But that's something most people don't use or even like. A stable job and better safety nets are preferred, and here DE/FR/etc excel.
All nice developed rich northern European countries with reasonable life expectancy and life quality.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?end=2...
Their difference from the UK is negligible.