NHS England and NHS Improvement last week announced a series of interventions in the local NHS , representing a major step-up in intervention over financial failure, while the National Audit Office said the Department of Health had overspent its 2015-16 budget.
Here is our round-up of the most important developments from the NHS’s financial and performance “reset”:
- A new financial special measures regime has been announced for trusts and CCGs to ensure the NHS lives within its means. Five trusts and nine CCGs have been put in the programme. This map shows all those affected. A chief executive of one of the trusts has said its main problem is that demand is increasing, not inefficiency.
- The Department of Health managed to keep within the element of its revenue budget “voted” by parliament, but only after receiving £417m extra of national insurance contributions due to an “administrative error”.
- New CCG ratings have also been published, with 26 groups rated inadequate. This map shows all the ratings. NHS England is intervening in all of these, including creating “single commissioning leadership structures” in Surrey and the South West.
- CCG efficiency targets have gone up 50 per cent on last year. Local NHS organisations are also going to be expected to agree two-year operational plans by the end of December, with NHS England and NHS Improvement saying they will release joint planning guidance in September.
- Performance trajectories reveal that more than a third of hospital trusts will still be missing the four hour A&E waiting time target by March 2017.
- Twenty-six trusts have not agreed control totals with NHSI, and 16 of these are predicting more than £400m in deficits for 2016-17.
- Trusts could face financial penalties from NHSI for over-recruiting staff.
- A cap has been introduced for the pay of interim managers working at CCGs.
- DH accounts also indicate that general practice’s share of health spending fell for another year in 2015-16
- Away from financial performance, the controversial Strategic Projects Team has been closed and health secretary Jeremy Hunt has also said which portfolios he and his ministers will be leading on, with him taking a lead for mental health.
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