Lord Warner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 27 January (HL5282), what were the sources and total cost of the non-recurrent deficit support income” used to fund directly the 125 trusts that would otherwise have been in deficit in financial year 2014/15; how many of those deficit trusts continued to require such deficit support during the financial year 2015/16; how many other NHS trusts are likely to receive such support in financial year 2015/16; what is the estimated total cost of such deficit support in financial year 2015/16; and what is the forecast contingency provision for such support in financial year 2016/17.”

Lord Prior of Brampton

To clarify my previous answer on 27 January (HL5282), 15 National Health Service providers received non-recurrent deficit support income from the Department in 2014/15, and without this income seven organisations would have reported a year-end deficit. This would have added to the 118 NHS providers that reported a financial deficit, resulting in a total of 125 NHS providers reporting an underlying deficit.

The total cost of this deficit support income was £176.3 million in 2014/15. Funding for this was provided through releasing resources from areas where there were no clear plans for spending.

The deficit support income does have the presentational effect of reducing or removing the deficit but the underlying deficit position is transparent in reporting and provider accounts and still remains until the trusts are in recurrent balance and are no longer needing financial support.

2015/16 information will be published alongside the Department’s accounts and providers are expected to report this income separately in their accounts.

For 2016/17, the £1.8 billion Sustainability and Transformation Fund will help providers to move to a sustainable financial footing.