After a decade of continued underfunding of public services, leading to a collapsed social and health service, you realise the question really isn't that deep
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/austerity-thousand...
Some of the research:
https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21490/1/‘Dead%20peop...
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/10/e046417
There's a mountain of evidence that the policies were democidally harmful and economically counterproductive.
Although they did increase financial inequality - which some people seem to consider a good thing rather than a bad one.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073
> Britain’s grim winter of strikes, falling incomes and a worsening NHS crisis is not some unfortunate series of events
> It’s the inevitable result of a decade of Tory austerity that steadily weakened the state’s capacity to respond to shocks
The average age in the UK is lower than the EU.
Not only has it increased in raw numbers, it's increased per capita, making this argument false by any measurement.
NHS funding has been effectivley stagnant [1]
There are also more complex issues beyond a single percentage metric.
But I am sure you know that
[1] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...
NHS funding increases are over 2,000% higher than France, a comparable first-world country, since 2010 -- according to World Bank data.
If the UK has "stagnant" spending increases, what's happening in comparable countries with way less spending increases? France has 0.3%/year healthcare spending increases in that period.
6.5% is not stagnant. It's not austerity. In fact, it's OVER DOUBLE the rate of inflation, contrary to your claims of "erosion by inflation". NHS funding is skyrocketing in real terms and in per capita amounts, over and above inflation.
To claim spending increases are eroded by either inflation or population changes is a lie. It's rising per capita at over 2x inflation. Zero erosion, except perhaps in the fever dreams of The Guardian journalists.