Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

1. What plans the Government have to change the NHS formula for funding clinical commissioning groups; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Allocations to CCGs are the responsibility of NHS England. However, I have been advised that NHS England will rely on advice from the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA) for changes in the CCG formula.

[Hugh Bayley]

The failure of the Government to use the long-established funding formula for the NHS in dividing the budget between CCGs in north Yorkshire has left us with glaring anomalies, so that in York, the funding is £1,050 per head, but for Scarborough and Ryedale, which is served by the same NHS foundation trust, the funding is £1,234 per head. That is quite unsustainable and will lead to further postcode rationing. The same funding formula must be applied to all CCGs throughout the country. When will that happen?

[Mr Hunt]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the way that NHS funding is allocated to different parts of the country. The allocation in my constituency is about the same as in his constituency, and I have long worried that things like age and rurality are not factored into the final amounts in the way that they need to be. However, in this case NHS England decided that if it was to follow precisely the ACRA recommendations, it would lead to higher growth for areas with better health outcomes and lower growth, or even cuts, for areas with less good outcomes, which it thought would be inconsistent with its responsibility to reduce health inequalities. That is why it is conducting a fundamental review, which it says it hopes will inform the next set of allocations for 2013-14.