Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

DHSC Annual Report & Accounts 2022-23

Status: Closed Opened: 10 Jan 2024 Closed: 29 May 2024 4 recommendations 27 conclusions 1 report

In 2023, the Committee reported that the Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) had overpaid and overordered £14.9 billion of inventory, which included PPE (£9.9 billion), COVID-19 medicines (£2.6 billion) and COVID-19 vaccines (£1.9 billion). Vast quantities of unusable and unneeded PPE were in storage awaiting disposal by recycling or burning, at significant cost …

Reports

1 report

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Thirty-First Report - Department of Health and Social Care …	HC 459	10 May 2024	31	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

4 items

4 Recommendation Thirty-First Report - Department of Hea… Acknowledged

Set out by summer 2024, key reasons and actions to reduce clinical patient harm.

We are concerned that the Department is spending £2.6 billion on clinical negligence payments without an effective plan to minimise future costs of the scheme. Incidences of clinical negligence continue to result in significant cost to the taxpayer, particularly in maternity settings. The Department has made provisions in its accounts …

Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation and has identified various factors contributing to patient harm. It commits to prioritising continuous patient safety improvement and will write to the Committee later in 2024 to detail the specific actions it is taking …

HM Treasury

6 Conclusion Thirty-First Report - Department of Hea… Acknowledged

Implement planned changes to control framework to prevent further ineligible payments by summer 2024.

NHS England again made payments to suspended GPs who were not eligible to receive them and has failed to adequately recover these overpayments. NHS England has made overpayments worth £1.3 million to suspended medical practitioners since 2017–18, just £33,000 of which it has recovered. For the second consecutive year the …

Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation, stating that work is already underway to recover overpaid amounts from suspended GPs, and NHS England will oversee this progress. However, it does not detail specific planned changes to its control framework or explicitly …

HM Treasury

20 Conclusion Thirty-First Report - Department of Hea… Acknowledged

NHS clinical negligence costs significantly exceed international comparators, lacking litigation trend data.

The Department recognised that each incidence of clinical negligence is a tragedy for an individual and their families.31 They also come with a monetary cost to the taxpayer, in compensation payments for pain suffered and the impact on people’s everyday lives. The Department sets money aside in its accounts which …

Government response. The government agrees with the committee's observations on clinical negligence and patient safety. It commits to prioritising continuous improvement in patient safety and will write to the committee later in 2024 to detail actions being taken with partners to reduce …

HM Treasury

26 Conclusion Thirty-First Report - Department of Hea… Acknowledged

£569 million ventilator stockpile to be disposed of, with no NHS purchasing restrictions.

The Department also procured 20,900 individual ventilators at a cost of £569 million, held in stock as “an ICU reserve”. In February 2024 the Department decided to close the reserve and dispose of these ventilators. We asked the Department why these ventilators were being scrapped rather than being donated or …

Government response. The Department has not yet determined how it will dispose of the stockpile of ventilators, but a hierarchy will be used to ensure sale or donation before disassembly for recycling.

HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session

Date	Witnesses
13 Mar 2024	Andy Brittain · Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Julian Kelly · NHS England, Professor Dame Jenny Harries · UK Health Security Agency, Shona Dunn · Home Office, Sir Chris Wormald KCB · Department for Health and Social Care	View ↗

Correspondence

2 letters

Date	Direction	Title
15 Apr 2024	—	Correspondence from Andy Brittain, Director General Finance, Department of Heal…
15 Apr 2024	—	Correspondence from Julian Kelly, Chief Financial Officer, NHS England, re DHSC…