Derbyshire CCGs’ Finances

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ruth George]

The hon. Gentleman has just summarised the next 11 minutes of my speech extremely well. I absolutely agree with him.

Having asked their commissioners to make a decision about all the cuts to voluntary services two weeks ago, after just four weeks of consultation over the summer, and in the face of challenges from Healthwatch Derbyshire and the county council’s health scrutiny committee and a large public outcry, the CCGs are now being forced to look again at some of the cuts, but they are still on the table. They come on top of all the other cuts to health and social care in Derbyshire, where the county council has lost more than half of its funding since 2010.

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

I share the concerns outlined by the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), and I absolutely regret what the CCGs are proposing for the voluntary budgets. I hope they think again, as I am sure everybody in this Chamber does. However, does the hon. Lady agree that contextualising this issue with a wider point about cuts, which she is about to start doing, is not as accurate as it could be? The litany of historical poor management decisions by the four CCGs got us to this place and is the problem we are dealing with now. As my hon. Friend said, we need a long-term solution, and we should not default to a narrative of Government cuts when we know that is not quite correct.

[Ruth George]

Actually, the alternative is correct. The CCGs in Derbyshire were managing absolutely fine until the five-year forward review in 2016-17. They were making surpluses, and there was no problem—particularly with North Derbyshire CCG, which covers my area and the hon. Gentleman’s area. It had surpluses and hit the 1% target underspend—[Interruption.]

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[Stephen Barclay]

In which case, I refer to the remarks of the hon. Member for High Peak, who did say that the CCGs’ position was strong in 2016. The hon. Gentleman is therefore seeking to disagree with his hon. Friend rather than with me.

[Lee Rowley]

Every Member present who represents a Derbyshire constituency is concerned about the actions of the CCG, particularly the implication for the voluntary sector. That was outlined by the three Conservatives and two of the Labour Members, either by speaking or by being present. The challenge is that, if we contextualise this debate in a not-quite-accurate framework, we misunderstand why we are here in the first place and therefore how we get out of here. That is why the cuts narrative from the hon. Member for High Peak is unhelpful in the extreme.

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was coming on to address the allocations for the four CCGs, which I am told by NHS England are above where NHS England independently sets the target. To be precise, according to NHS England, in the case of the Derbyshire CCGs, North Derbyshire is 6.2% above its target allocation, while Erewash is 2.31%, Hardwick 1.92% and Southern Derbyshire 0.25% above the target.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is about how effectively the money is spent. He is also right that, within that search for efficiencies, alongside the additional £20 billion of funding that the Government have allocated, we need to address the point that the hon. Lady correctly raised about the value for money of many of the voluntary services. He correctly identified that there is a cross-party consensus and indeed concern that the value for money of those services should not be the first line of call when seeking efficiencies.

As part of that discussion, the CCG has confirmed that, having looked into this, three of the voluntary services will be protected. The south Derbyshire, Chesterfield and north Derbyshire Cruse Bereavement Care and the Stroke Association support services will be protected. The hon. Lady made a point about the value for money of night services costing £34,000, which within a £51 million target is a very small sum, and the New Mills where she cited the £2.26 per hour. That is exactly the discussion that the CCG is having. It is unhelpful to scare local people ahead of those consultations, because those decisions have not been taken. One of the benefits of the hon. Lady calling this debate is that it allows Members from across the House to put on record their support for voluntary services as part of looking at the legitimate question of where the efficiencies from economies of scale can be identified across the CCGs.

The Government are allocating more funding to the NHS, but they are looking at areas that are above their target allocation to ask, “Where are the inefficiencies and how do we spend that?” As part of asking taxpayers to contribute £20 billion more a year to the NHS, it is right that we ask how effectively that money is spent and that we ensure that we drive efficiencies.

The hon. Lady did not mention this, but it is pertinent that there is funding to Derbyshire in other forms: for example, the £12.5 million that has recently been provided for the four CCGs to spend on increasing theatre capacity at the Royal Derby Hospital. Again, that is part of enabling the CCGs to drive efficiencies. Some £40 million of sustainability and transformation partnership capital bids are yet to be approved. There are additional funding bids in the Department, NHS Improvement and NHS England as part of driving those efficiencies that the CCGs are being asked to deliver.

Alongside that is the vanguard programme—the CCGs agreed a business case in January 2018 to spend £1.1 million to continue to fund significant elements of the Wellbeing Erewash programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) has been an extremely strong champion of the benefits and importance of the programme in Erewash in her interactions with ministerial colleagues. The CCGs have introduced a range of financial measures to improve their financial position, including development of an efficiency strategy and a move to joint leadership arrangements, to which the hon. Member for High Peak referred. Closer functional working across the four CCGs in Derbyshire will help, but so will the additional capital that is being sought and innovation to work more efficiently through programmes such as vanguard.

On the voluntary sector, which was the meat of the hon. Lady’s remarks, it is important to stress that decisions have not been taken and that a consultation process is under way. The CCGs will have those discussions with local stakeholders. It is important to be clear that before taking any final funding decisions on services through the voluntary and communities sector, that further round of engagement and consultation with the local communities, local authorities, patients, GPs and other stakeholders will take place.