Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the overall cost of the reforms to the NHS proposed within the Health and Care Bill 2021; and how much of that cost is attributed to (a) staff redundancies, (b) IT infrastructure for new organisations, (c) estates costs of closing bodies and setting up new organisations and (d) programme management.

Since 2018, the National Health Service has been merging many clinical commissioning groups and formally designating areas as non-statutory integrated care systems (ICSs). Each area in England has been covered by a non-statutory ICS since 1 April 2021. We would therefore not expect significant additional costs from the Bill, which will be placing these non-statutory ICSs on a statutory footing.

In 2022/23, the NHS is planning on running costs remaining broadly the same as 2021/22. Systems will be expected to absorb any additional costs within existing budgets, including those from staff redundancies, IT infrastructure, estates costs of closing organisations and programme management. An impact assessment for the Health and Care Bill was published on 14 September 2021, which considers the financial costs of the proposed reforms.