Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what role Price Waterhouse Coopers have been assigned in assisting with the financial management of the Mid & South Essex NHS Hospitals Trust; how long this task has been assigned for; what the cost to the public purse is; and what outputs they are required to deliver.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) received a direct award to undertake a nationally mandated Investigation and Intervention programme at the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board, to support it in delivering its financial plan.

The programme lasted eight weeks, and the cost of phase one was £246,187, which the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust and the integrated care board incurred. The output was a report recommending actions the system should take to recover its in-year plan.

The Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board decided to secure additional support from PwC for phase two from mid-July to the end of October 2024, which cost £1.07 million. This evolved into a programme of work supporting direct intervention within and across the foundation trust’s hospital sites.