Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that NHS trusts move into financial surplus by 2030.

The National Health Service priorities and operational planning guidance 2025/26 made it clear that living within budget, reducing waste and increasing productivity is a priority. This year’s financial framework changes include making deficit support funding conditional on performance, implementing a financial override in the Oversight Framework, and introducing additional support for efficiency and productivity through the new Financial Performance and Improvement Programme. The 10-Year Health Plan also made several longer-term commitments to strengthen the NHS financial foundation, which are now being taken forward, including:

(a) A commitment to deliver 2% annual productivity growth, which will unlock £17 billion in savings over 3 years.

(b) A new approach to NHS financial management including multi-year settlements, and phasing out deficit support funding;

(c) Sharper financial incentives including the use of best practice tariffs, and changing the funding model to encourage urgent and emergency care to shift to the community;

(d) A fairer geographical distribution of funding, to target areas with disproportionate economic and health challenges; and

(e) Reform of the capital regime, giving more power to the frontline and speeding up the capital approvals process.