Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
NHS funding has increased, but to deliver key priorities such as elective and cancer recovery...
Recommendation
NHS funding has increased, but to deliver key priorities such as elective and cancer recovery it will need to be spent in the most cost-effective way. The Department has allocated £14 billion to NHSE from 2022–23 to 2024–25 specifically to recover elective and cancer care. This comprises £8 billion of resource funding and £5.9 billion of capital funding. The Autumn Statement 2022 committed an additional £3.3 billion in 2023–24 and 2024–25 to the NHS budget as a whole. NHSE told us this would be sufficient for the NHS to deliver its key priorities. However, NHSE 6 Managing NHS backlogs and waiting times in England has opted not to produce a detailed costed version of its recovery plan to show how it expects all of the £14 billion to be spent. Without timely evaluation of its programmes, including surgical hubs and clinical diagnostic centres, there is a risk that the future allocation of resources will not be informed by reality on the ground. Overall, the NHS has a problem with reduced productivity. An internal review by NHS England estimated that the NHS was around 16% less productive in 2021 than in 2019 and said that the immediate effects of the pandemic were not the only cause. Recommendation: NHSE should transparently describe how the additional funds for elective recovery have been allocated. Alongside the Treasury Minute response, it should also write to us providing details of the programmes on which it expects the £14 billion to be spent, the independent evaluations it has put in place to monitor the effectiveness of additional spending, and how it expects additional spending to improve NHS productivity.
Government Response Summary
NHS England will write to the Committee before summer recess to set out further detail on how funding available for elective recovery will be spent, together with details of its evaluation plans and initiatives to improve productivity.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented The government, as part of the Autumn Statement 2022, announced an additional £3.3billion for each of 2023-24 and 2024-25 to support the NHS in England. This additional funding will help the NHS to focus on delivery of its public commitments on Elective Recovery, following a challenging set of delivery conditions and higher-than-expected levels of inflation. More broadly, at the 2021 Spending Review, £14 billion was made available to the NHS to support Elective Recovery. £8 billion of the £14 billion funding for elective recovery is revenue, allocated to local systems that develop plans for delivering local priorities that will support the NHS to meet the commitments made in the delivery plan, using NHSE issued operational planning guidance. The remaining £6 billion is capital to support longer-term investment in the NHS that will support productivity improvements and increase capacity. NHS England will write to the Committee before summer recess to set out further detail on how funding available for elective recovery will be spent, together with details of its evaluation plans and initiatives to improve productivity. To support an improved understanding of the impact of spend, the NHS England elective recovery programme will coordinate evaluations, which will focus on rapid programme learning, improvement of programme delivery, and effectiveness of high priority recovery interventions in collaboration with other NHS England programmes. It will also work with external organisations who may plan or already undertake evaluations of interventions relevant to elective recovery. million tests, exams, and scans since July 2021 despite challenging and uncertain delivery conditions. NHS England will write to the Committee before summer recess to set out further detail of the impact of community diagnostic centres, surgical hubs, use of the independent sector, and the advice and guidance programme.