From 2014-15, NHS England and Monitor will be jointly responsible for the payment system for NHS funded care.

Clinical commissioning groups will be encouraged to experiment with different ways of paying for care next year, in what could be the start of the biggest reform of NHS payment systems since the introduction of payment by results, HSJ reported on Monday.

A discussion paper published this week by NHS England and healthcare sector regulator Monitor said the current system, under which around £29bn a year is spent based on nationally fixed “tariff” prices, was not always founded on good information and was often cited as a barrier to integrated care.

Podcast: How can the NHS payment system do more for patients? by MonitorRegulator

In this podcast, Christian Fielder, from Monitor’s pricing team, talks about designing a new comprehensive payment system and what its objectives should be.