Health Professions: Training

(asked on 15th December 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of including the market forces factor as a criterion for allocation of Service Increment for Teaching (SIFT) funding on the amounts allocated for each Local Education and Training Board (LETB) in England; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of SIFT funding spent on salaries in (a) London and (b) each other LETB in England.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 21st December 2016

The market forces factor (MFF) index used in the allocation of funding for clinical placements (formerly known as service increment for training) is consistent with the approach taken by NHS Improvement in adjusting service tariffs to reflect unavoidable cost differences between health care providers, based on their geographical location. This is considered the most appropriate method to adjust resource allocations in the National Health Service in proportion to these cost differences.

The MFF is applied to all three education and training tariffs, however it is not applied to the contribution to salary for postgraduate doctors in training, which instead are based on national pay scales and amended for inner and outer London weighting.

Reticulating Splines