Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the reasons are for the publication of the NHS Mandate 2017-18 being later than in previous years.

The Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2017-18 was published and laid before Parliament on 20 March 2017, ahead of coming into force on 1 April 2017. It sets out seven overarching objectives for NHS England and confirms its budget for the coming year, including a 1.4% real terms increase.

At the Spring Budget 2017, the Government made additional social care funding available to support mandate commitments on investment in the transformation of out-of-hospital care. It was therefore necessary to wait until this process was completed before discussions on the mandate were concluded.