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Community Hospitals

Volume 448: debated on Thursday 6 July 2006

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans the Government have to make extra funding available to NHS trusts to prevent the closure of community hospitals. (58921)

Revenue allocations are made directly to primary care trusts (PCTs) and not to national health service trusts. The allocations are determined on the basis of the relative needs of PCTs’ populations. On 9 February 2005, PCTs were informed of their revenue allocations up to 2007-08. The 2006-07 and 2007-08 revenue allocations represent £135 billion investment in the NHS, £64 billion to PCTs in 2006-07 and £70 billion in 2007-08. The Department has no plans to make extra funding available to PCTs.

As outlined in the recently published White Paper “Our health, our care, our say”: a new direction for community services, the Department aims to provide more care in more local and convenient settings. This will partially be achieved by introducing a new generation of community hospitals and the Department published “Our health, our care, our community: investing in the future of community hospitals and services” on 5 July which describes how the Department intends to invest up to £750 million over the next five years in a new generation of community hospitals.