Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that coastal hospitals such as the James Paget receive adequate NHS capital and revenue funding.

We remain committed to delivering all schemes within the New Hospital Programme, including James Paget, which will continue through the Spending Review 2025. The programme is funded for five-year waves of investment, averaging around £3 billion a year from 2030.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning and funding the care delivered by healthcare providers, including the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The amount of funding received by each provider is based on the NHS Payment Scheme, which is a set of rules, prices, and guidance that determine how the providers of National Health Service-funded healthcare are paid for the services they deliver.

NHS England is responsible for determining the allocation of financial resources to ICBs. The process of setting funding allocations is informed by the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, an independent committee that provides advice to NHS England on setting the target formula which impacts how allocations are distributed over time according to factors such as demography, morbidity, deprivation, and the unavoidable cost of providing services in different areas. There are a range of adjustments made in the core ICB allocations formula that account for the fact that the cost of providing health care may vary between rural and urban areas.

ICB allocations for 2025/26 were published on 30 January 2025 and allocations for 2026/27 to 2027/28 were published on 17 November. These are available at the following links respectively:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/allocation-of-resources-2025-26/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/allocation-of-resources-2026-27-to-2027-28/

The Norfolk and Waveney ICB, which currently covers the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, received an uplift to its recurrent core services allocation of 3.85% in 2025/26.

Following announced mergers due to take effect from 1 April 2026, a new NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB will cover James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust from 2026/27. The new ICB will see its recurrent core services allocation uplifted by 3.05% in 2026/27 and 3.29% in 2027/28.

Budget 2025 confirmed a rise in the Department’s capital budgets to £15.2 billion by the end of the Spending Review period. This includes over £4 billion in operational capital in 2025/26, with a further £16.9 billion to be allocated to ICBs and providers over the following four years. James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been allocated £46.8 million in operational funding for the period 2026/27 to 2029/30.