Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether ICBs will be expected to fund redundancy costs from re-organisation from their day-to-day budgets.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the abolition of NHS England, we are clear on the need for a smaller centre, as well as reducing integrated care board running costs and National Health Service provider corporate costs, in order to reduce waste and bureaucracy. Good progress is being made, with the Department and NHS England having announced voluntary exit or redundancy schemes.

We have recently announced the Spending Review settlement which provides an additional £29 billion of annual day to day spending in real terms by 2028/29, compared to 2023/24. Ahead of asking the NHS to commence a multi-year planning round, we are now carefully reviewing how the settlement is prioritised, including making provision for redundancy costs.