Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NAO report Investigation into supply chain finance in the NHS, HC 734, published on 29 October 2021, what the costs have been to NHS Trusts which used the Earnd of switching to alternative salary advancement initiatives.

As detailed in the National Audit Office (NAO) report, of the seven National Health Service trusts reported on by the NAO as having used the EARND scheme, two were reported as having lost money totalling £21,429. NHS England was not aware of any other NHS trusts losing money through the EARND scheme.

The identities of the seven NHS trusts were anonymised in the NAO report and therefore it is not possible to provide information on the costs to these trusts of using alternative salary advance schemes since the date of the report.