Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the capital requirements for the NHS for the next three years.

The capital budget for the Department - the majority of which is accounted for by capital spending in National Health Service organisations - was set for the years 2016-17 to 2020-21 at the last Spending Review. This was based upon assessments of capital requirements across the Department’s budgets in meeting Government objectives. The capital budget was set as £4.81 billion for each of the five years of the Spending Review period. Further details can be found at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-and-autumn-statement-2015-documents

Assessment of demands against, and prioritisation of, this overall capital budget is a continuous process, drawing upon national and local level plans and processes. This includes the Sustainability and Transformation Plan process. In the 2017 Spring Budget the Government recognised that delivery of these plans to transform clinical services for patients will require additional capital investment and announced additional funding of £325 million over the next three years - over and above the original budget set in the Spending Review - to support the most robust and advanced plans. Recognising the particular pressures facing accident and emergency (A&E) departments, the Spring Budget also announced an additional £100 million to the NHS in England in 2017-18 for capital investment in A&E departments.