Health Services: Privatisation

Department of Health written question – answered at on 8 February 2017.

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Photo of Andrea Jenkyns Andrea Jenkyns Conservative, Morley and Outwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the process is for NHS England to determine its funding annually for the prioritisation of specialised services.

Photo of David Mowat David Mowat The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health

The majority of NHS England’s allocation for specialised services is pre-committed each year to fund established treatments and interventions for patients across all prescribed specialised services.

Once these commitments have been planned for, any remaining resources for new investments are allocated in the following order of financial priority:

1. NHS England’s first priority for funding is non-discretionary investments. These include service investment for Technology Appraisals and the appraisals undertaken as part of the Highly Specialised Technologies Programme, both conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. NHS England is legally required to fund these treatments.

2. For discretionary investment, the first priority is funding services that support the delivery of the NHS Constitution Standards. These include the 18-week wait referral to treatment time and the cancer and mental health targets.

3. The next priority is developments which support National Health Service strategies and priorities. These may be pre-existing priorities, such as increasing access to transplantation, or alternatively be nationally / locally driven strategic change.

4. All other developments will then be considered.

These orders of financial priority were subject to public consultation in 2015. In 2016, a further consultation took place on the annual prioritisation process. The annual prioritisation process is used if the total cost of developments in group four exceeds available remaining resources.

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