Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent forecast his Department has made of the level of deficit in (a) NHS providers and (b) clinical commissioning groups in 2016-17.

The Government’s expectation is that the National Health Service will deliver financial balance in this year and this is made clear in the Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2016-17.

The NHS leadership bodies have set out their own plan for delivering financial balance and future year sustainability for the NHS, in the Five Year Forward View (October 2014) and Strengthening Financial Performance & Accountability in 2016-17 (July 2016).

There has been some progress so far, but there is no room for complacency. That is why the system needs to stick to its strong financial plan, supported by our £10 billion investment and the series of measures set out to help providers become more efficient and reduce the use of expensive agency staff.

NHS Improvement has set out its latest expectations for the provider sector in its Quarter 2 performance report, that can be found via the following link:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/quarterly-performance-nhs-provider-sector-quarter-2-1617/

NHS England has set out its latest expectations for the commissioning sector in its Financial Performance Report: Second Quarter 2016-17, that can be found at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publications/financial-performance-reports/