NHS: Finance

(asked on 22nd June 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with health professionals on the capped expenditure process.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 30th June 2017

This Government has committed to increase National Health Service spending by a minimum of £8 billion in real terms over the next five years, and for the first time to deliver an increase in real funding per head of the population for every year of the Parliament.

As with all public services, local NHS areas need to live within the budget agreed – otherwise they effectively take up resources that could be spent on general practitioners, mental health care, and cancer treatment. As part of their financial planning, NHS England and NHS Improvement have been running a process to look at how a small number of areas could do more to balance their financial plans, as many already have.

It is important that these plans are consistent with constitutional standards on waiting times and patient choice. But it is right that the NHS should consider efficiency savings such as reducing delayed transfers of care, or reducing running costs – because this improves patient care overall.

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