Recommendation 15

We asked the Department about the limited extent of capital investment in the NHS. It told us that it had taken an explicit decision to reduce capital investment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in the interests of managing budgets but accepted this has now put pressure onto capital programmes.48 The Department highlighted how Integrated Care Boards now have more discretion to target capital resources towards local priorities than under previous arrangements, and will also have greater flexibility to retain and deploy proceeds from asset disposals. However, when we pressed on whether this meant they will be able to keep all proceeds from such disposals, the Department told us that further guidance on how this flexibility will be managed would be provided by government in 39 Q 147 40 Q 42 41 Qq 38–39, 43–47 42 Q 46 43 Letter dated 26 November 2022 from Amanda Pritchard at NHS England to the Committee 44 C&AG’s Report, para 2.29 45 Committee of Public Accounts, NHS capital expenditure and financial management, Eighth report of Session 2019–21, HC 344, 8 July 2020 46 Qq 59–62, 66–67 47 Q 67 48 Q 61–62 14 Introducing Integrated Care Systems due course.49 In September 2020, the Department told us it would publish its long-term strategy for capital in Autumn 2020, and in June 2022 it told us that it would be published in Autumn 2022. The strategy remained unpublished at the time of the evidence session, and the Department has since written to inform us that it currently expects to publish the strategy in early 2023.50 51 NHS workforce