It has been confirmed that £1bn of the ‘new money’ promised to the NHS by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson for capital investment is to be achieved by raising the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) baseline capital expenditure limit.
This means Trusts will be able to revert to their original capital plans where they were to be funded by their own income and reserves or where DHSC has already approved the business case or funding. Earlier in the year, Trusts had been told to cut these spending plans by one fifth.
In a letter to Trust Chief Executives, STP and ICS leads and Trust Financial Directors, Julian Kelly, Chief Financial Officer NHS England and NHS Improvement calls on Trusts to “collectively improve our capital forecasts and provide a taut and realistic view of the forecast outturn for your organisations in September. We will then be able to judge whether there is headroom to go further on tackling critical maintenance backlogs this year.”
The letter also sets out the requirements of a new capital regime that needs to accompany increased investment and anything further that may be allocated in the Spending Review.
This regime needs to secure:
• A clearer prioritisation at local and national level of investment
• A stronger link to delivering increased productivity and financial efficiency
• Better use of the asset base, better patient care and deliver of the goals of the Long Term Plan
• Greater oversight over capital spending through the new health infrastructure plan, as set out by the Secretary of State.
Mr Kelly thanks Trusts for the work carried out to set “prioritised and constrained capital plans for 2019/20” saying this was an important step in demonstrating to Government the ability of the NHS to deliver financial control.
The remaining £850m of the Prime Minister's funding pledge for the NHS has been allocated to 20 specific capital schemes. See the full list here.
