Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the amount of deficit in NHS trusts and foundation trusts in (a) 2016-17 and (b) 2017-18.

This Government has set very clear expectations in the mandate to the National Health Service that financial balance must be achieved and this is supported by our commitment to increase funding by £10 billion per year by the end of this Parliament.

To deliver financial balance, the NHS leadership bodies have set out their own plan for delivering financial sustainability for the NHS, in the Five Year Forward View (October 2014) and Strengthening Financial Performance and Accountability document (July 2016).

On a quarterly basis, NHS Improvement publishes the latest performance against these plans. The latest position for 2016-17 is available in NHS Improvement’s “Quarterly Performance of the Provider Sector as at 31 December 2016” report, which is available on their website via the link below:

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/quarterly-performance-nhs-provider-sector-quarter-3-1617/

Our expectation remains that overall financial balance will be achieved in 2017-18, with detailed organisational level plans still being worked through. Performance against these plans will again be published on a quarterly basis.