NHS England: Revised Financial Directions

Thursday 30th March 2023 Written Statements

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)]

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Markham, has made the following written statement:

I am revising the 2022-23 variation to the financial directions to NHS England made on 30 June 2022 and setting the 2023-24 financial directions to NHS England. The amendment to the total revenue resource use limit for 2022-23 has been agreed with NHS England as required under section 223D(4) of the National Health Service Act 2006.

The directions include a number of transfers of funding between NHS England and DHSC that are in addition to the headline spending review/autumn statement settlement for the NHS. For example, funding is being transferred for the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access (VPAS), the covid-19 vaccination programme, as well as to fulfil manifesto commitments on primary care, car parking and nursing recruitment.

Furthermore, the directions also reflect the organisational changes which have occurred over the last year. The 2022-23 revised directions have now incorporated NHS Digital’s revenue and capital budgets into NHS England’s budget. Moreover, the 2023-24 opening directions will incorporate the full-year budgets of NHS Improvement, NHS Digital and Health Education England’s budgets. This is because those organisations have been (or in the case of Health Education England, will be from 1 April) formally brought together with NHS England into a single legal organisation.

They will be published on gov.uk. The existing NHS mandate remains unchanged by these publications.

[HCWS706]