ICS asks private providers for £10,000 contributions

Well-placed sources have told HSJ that the Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICS recently asked a private provider to contribute £10,000 a year to the system for 2021-22. It is understood to be asking other independent providers in the area too.

Tracey Cox, BSW Partnership’s senior responsible officer, told HSJ  the annual contributions are “voluntary” and go towards general ICS running costs.

It is understood providers’ contributions will be included in the 2021-22 budget and they have been told the money will “fund a number of roles and initiatives that support system work programmes”.

Some other providers — thought to be NHS trusts — are already contributing almost £100,000 each annually to the ICS’ running costs.

Ms Cox told HSJ: “As a new partnership, and one that brings together more than a dozen of our local health and care system’s key players, we inevitably face some running costs and these have, since the time of the former BSW Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, been supported through voluntary contributions by a number of our member organisations.

“These contributions are in no way contractual, nor a pre-requisite to membership, with a significant proportion of these contributions going towards the funding of system-wide initiatives which benefit all partner organisations.”

Writing on Twitter, chief executive of the independent healthcare providers network David Hare said the ICS requesting financial contributions is “deeply problematic”. 

He said: ”Deeply problematic on so many levels. Just one - what happens in the event of a procurement and the winner has paid and a loser hasn’t. Inducement? Reminder to me that lots more work is needed on ICS governance.”

ICS are due to become statutory organisations in April next year, if proposed government legislation is successful, at which point it is they will receive their own allocated budget.