When the Chancellor stands up in the House of Commons just after midday to deliver her Budget, she’ll be following in the wake of 14 years of successive Tory Budgets that delivered economic mismanagement, fiscal incompetence, and cruel austerity which stifled growth, deterred investment, and took an axe to our public services to the point where many of them are now left on the brink of collapse.

Given the aftermath of this 14-year record of failure that she has now been left to pick up, it’s not a stretch to describe the challenge that the Chancellor faces as immense, and with a £22 billion financial black hole left that was left behind by the Tories who made no effort to ensure that their sums added up, she has made no secret of what she sees as a need to take tough decisions to clear up the mess.

Yet whilst the Chancellor may appear as a result to be reluctant to unleash waves of public investment in what is her first Budget, she must reconsider, because it’s precisely this public investment that can help unlock the productivity and investment that she yearns to deliver, and which the UK desperately and sorely needs to see. With creaking, outdated infrastructure, investing to improve our transport and energy network are two of the most obvious candidates for inclusion in the Budget, but so too is our NHS, and it’s here where the Chancellor needs to concentrate her efforts.

The Chancellors, Health Secretaries, Ministers, and MPs who served under the last Tory Government will tell you that they didn’t cut and instead increased the budget for our NHS each year that they were in power, yet what they will neglect to mention that these increases fell short of the average increase that our NHS has received since it was established more than 70 years ago. Nor will they tell you that their increases paled in comparison to the increased cost of running our NHS with an ageing population, an increasingly outdated NHS estate, and more expensive medical procedures.

After 14 years of underfunding our NHS, it’s these failures to match the average funding increase that has created the huge budget gap that our NHS now faces, and which has plunged it into a state of emergency.

With a dire workforce crisis triggered by inadequate pay, overworked shifts, and poor conditions, our NHS is short of tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, and vital support staff, without whom we cannot hope to deliver the world-class healthcare that people deserve. And without investment in staff, new facilities, improved capacity, or state-of-the-art equipment, neither can we hope to tackle the backlog which has left patients stuck on waiting lists for surgeries and appointments for months and weeks under the last Tory Government.

When the Chancellor delivers her Budget, it’s therefore investment to strengthen salaries and working conditions, improve recruitment, and deliver new technologies and practices that need to be among her first announcements. However, she must also recognise that acting just to reverse the dire situation that is facing many of our hospitals is not enough. Instead, she must take the opportunity to signal greater investment in delivering healthcare in our communities through GPs, public health projects, and more localised provision in cooperation with groups such as pharmacies and community centres.

It’s this proactive delivery of healthcare at a community level that is the only real way that we can begin to permanently reverse the alarming health inequality gap that poorer communities across the country, and especially those in Bradford, have been forced to endure under the Tories. And with health inequalities correlating with a higher propensity to suffer from multiple health conditions, it remains the best way to alleviate future pressures on our NHS, saving both money and lives in the process.

Tackling health inequalities also enhances the overall health of our communities, enabling older people to retain their independence unhindered by health conditions, and supporting a healthier, more productive workforce that will boost productivity and unlock investment without risking the founding principles of our NHS to deliver healthcare that is free at the point of use for the betterment of all.

So, when she stands up in the House of Commons to deliver her Budget, if the Chancellor is serious about undoing 14 years of Tory decline, investment in healthcare and our NHS must be at the top of her announcements.