Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they expect the National Health Service to operate at a deficit for 2014; and what assessment they have made of the impact of any such deficit on performance.

The Department group contains almost five hundred separate National Health Service organisations. The Department is required to contain the total spending of all of those organisations within a set of financial controls operated by HM Treasury and approved by Parliament. Despite significant pressures, the Department expects to contain spending within these financial controls in 2014-15.

Alongside financial balance, maintaining performance against waiting time standards is a priority for the Government. The NHS is experiencing unprecedented demand for its services from a growing, ageing population with complex health needs which is making delivery of consistently high quality, timely care within its budget ever more challenging. Performance against a range of quality measures remains high but some patients are not receiving treatment as soon as the Government would like. Robust year-round operational resilience planning and performance management, backed by additional funding, is in place to help the NHS recover performance against waiting time standards in 2014-15.