NHS: Deficit

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the quarterly performance report published by NHS Improvement on 16 November, what is their current projection for the aggregate deficit of NHS provider organisations at the end of this financial year.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O’Shaughnessy) (Con)]

Prior to today’s Budget settlement, recent figures from the NHS suggested that trusts will end the year with a combined deficit of £600 million. The vast majority of trusts are on plan to balance their budgets or better, and for those trusts in financial special measures, significant support is available to return them to good financial health.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. He glided over the fact that the level of deficit in trusts seems to be rising rather more rapidly than the Government can cope with. Two weeks ago, the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation and the King’s Fund produced a joint report that said that the levels of funding then planned for the NHS were,

“far below what is needed to maintain standards of care”.

They said that £25 billion would be needed by the end of the Parliament and £4 billion was needed urgently next year. The Government have given £1.6 billion in today’s Budget for next year. This is at a time of rising numbers of mixed-sex wards, and of trusts delaying payments to small business suppliers and having to take out bank loans to pay their staff. Is this a case of the Government not caring about the NHS and wanting to see it wither on the vine?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

That is a completely unfair accusation and unjustified, both by the funding settlement that the NHS had and by the improved settlement today. First, deficits have been falling year on year for the past couple of years in terms of both outturn and forecast, and that is before today’s announcement on additional funding. The Chancellor today announced over £2.5 billion-worth of extra revenue funding over the next two years. That means that the actual value of the spending review settlement will end up being £11.5 billion compared with £8 billion, so I reject the idea that this Government are not funding the NHS properly.