Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 21
25th Report - DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24
Published 14 May 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We asked NHS England what progress it had made in addressing the approvals and ensuring that payments being made without being approved did not happen again. NHS England recognised that “every case that is 31 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Consolidated NHS Provider Accounts 2023–24, HC 399, 26 November 2024, page 47; Department of Health and Social Care Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, pages 164, 189 32 Committee of Public Accounts, Sixth Report of Session 2022–23, Department of Health and Social Care 2020–21 Annual Report and Accounts, HC 253, 10 June 2022 33 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes: Government Response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Second, and the Fourth to the Eighth reports from Session 2022–23, CP 708, August 2022 34 HM Treasury, Managing Public Money, May 2023, page 142 35 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Consolidated NHS Provider Accounts 2023–24, HC 399, 26 November 2024, page 47; Department of Health and Social Care Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, HC 476, 17 December 2024, page 164 17 not properly approved is wrong”. It told us that it continued to work with providers and ICBs to “remind them of their duties” including through regular training sessions. NHS England told us that it considered its current approach of reminding NHS providers of the requirements to be proportionate, but was unable to guarantee that there will not be future examples where NHS bodies fail to follow the process and obtain the required approvals.36
From: Public Accounts Committee, 25th Report - DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 (HC 639), 14 May 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-fifth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 14 July 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenth-fifth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees" with each of the Committee's recommendations and gives target implementation dates ranging from "Recommendation implemented" to "to be advised".
- On the transfer of NHS England's functions, it agrees to share its plan and timetable, and says information on the size of resource functions "is likely to be confirmed in Autumn 2025".
- On the Annual Report and Accounts, it "plans to cover" the areas listed in the 2024-25 report and will update the Committee in September 2025.
- On publishing accounts before summer recess, it will write in September 2025 with detail on its multi-year plan, saying audit firms have indicated they lack capacity for pre-recess laying "in the shorter-term".
- On clinical negligence costs, it says ministers "will examine" the drivers of costs and "the potential merits of reform options", with the implementation date "to be advised".