£65bn in the hands of local doctors, nurses and other health professionals
In the future, doctors, nurses and other health professionals could control almost £65 billion of NHS funding, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced today.
In addition, around £5.2 billion would be spent on public health services. Of this, at least £2.2 billion will go direct to Local Authorities to be spent on action to help their local communities stay as healthy as possible and to reduce health inequalities and will, for the first time, be protected.
The figures were developed by mapping PCT spending in 2010/11 on to the future structure, subject to the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill, and uplifting them to 2012/13 levels.
They estimate that Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) will be responsible for around £65 billion of commissioning expenditure and the NHS Commissioning Board for around £21 billion.
Understanding baseline spend is just the first step in establishing future budgets and further analysis will build on this. These figures will help to plan for the distribution of resources in the new system in a way that meets the needs of local populations. They will also support local organisations to plan for the transfer of public health responsibilities to Local Authorities and of commissioning to CCGs.
Emerging CCGs are getting ready for their future responsibilities. They are already spending nearly £30bn as delegated from Primary Care Trusts – almost half of what we expect they will spend in the future. By April 2012, we want local doctors, nurses and other health professionals to be involved in shaping all spending decisions that they will in future be responsible for.
This is important to ensure that emerging CCGs start working on managing their budgets, developing relationships with local partners and playing an active role in planning services for 2012/13, taking ownership for the areas which they will inherit when they become legally responsible for commissioning.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said:
“In the future, we want money to get to where it matters most – to the front line, where it can have the greatest impact on health. We want to give doctors, nurses and other health professionals control of £65 billion to spend on services for their patients and Local Authorities £2.2 billion to help local people to live healthy lives. The health professionals who care for us, and the General Practitioners who look after their local populations, are best equipped to design the shape of local health services. Through the CCGs, they will now have that power.
“There is more work to do, but these estimates mean that Clinical Commissioning Groups and Local Authorities can begin planning how to deliver the frontline services that matter the most.
“We want to get the best value out of every penny spent in the NHS and our modernisation plans will help to cut waste, reduce bureaucracy and simplify NHS structures so that the money invested will improve frontline care for patients.”
The Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation will publish their formula for allocating resources to clinical commissioning groups and to local authorities for their new public health responsibilities in due course.
Written and supplied by the Department of Health
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