NHS: Trust Finances

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, it is true indeed that Jim Mackey mentioned those figures. He is hoping that he can get that deficit down to £1.8 billion by the end of the year as a result of some of the capital to revenue and other accounting adjustments to which the noble Lord referred. We are also hoping that the reduction in agency spend will start to have a big impact in the final quarter of the year. We will get the third quarter results in two weeks’ time, when we will have a better idea as to where we will end up at the end of the year.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the noble Lord mentioned in his Statement imposing a tariff on agency staff, cutting down on consultancy fees and the potential savings that the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, might produce—although most people doubt that it will. Where does he think that the finances of the NHS will be on 1 April 2017? What is his prediction?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The cap on agency staffing rates and on agency staff has really started to apply only in the past six weeks. So far, it looks as if we are making significant progress there. As I said in answer to the Question, the NHS is receiving £3.8 billion of extra funding in the forthcoming year. We believe that that will enable it to restore its finances to a proper balance by April 2017.