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NHS: Finance

Volume 459: debated on Wednesday 18 April 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) funding packages and (b) joint-funding packages were completed by each primary care trust or predecessor bodies for patients whose complex needs cost (i) £100,000 to £249,999, (ii) £250,000 to £499,999 and (iii) more than £500,000 per annum in each of the last three years. (127569)

Cost data collected from the national health service do not distinguish between the costs of individual patients.

We are therefore unable to separately identify the number of patients whose complex needs cost £100,000 to £249,999, £250,000 to £499,999 and more than £500,000 per annum in each of the last three years.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what purpose funds from the Centrally Funded Initiatives Services and Special Allocation (CFISSA) described in the 2006 Department of Health Annual Report as CFISSA budgets issued with primary care trust allocations were intended; and how they differ from other primary care trust revenue allocations. (130341)

The purpose and value of the centrally funded initiatives services and special allocations (CFISSA) funds issued with primary care trust (PCT) initial allocations are in the following table. These allocations differ from other CFISSA allocations only in that they are incorporated into PCT initial resource limits and are allocated at the start of the financial year. Other funds issued to the national health service from the CFISSA programme are made as in year allocation adjustments.

2005-06 centrally funded initiatives services and special allocations programme - allocations included with PCT initial resource limits

£000

Primary medical services resource limit adjustment

4,517,190

General medical services cash limited rebasing

-702,554

Pension indexation: PCT contribution

1,333,343

NHS funded nursing care

584,000

Palliative care

50,000

Pensions indexation adjustment for personal medical services practice staff

33,171

Neo natal intensive care

20,709

Revascularisation

16,901

Dangerous people with serious personality disorders

12,286

Health Protection Agency

9,674

Dentistry

3,907

Health Protection Agency

2,315

Medium secure services for deaf people

1,394

Non medical education and training

870

Improving services for people with multiple sclerosis

758

Health Protection Agency

610

Pensions indexation

500

Regional directors of public health support

437

Prison healthcare

90

Defibrillator funding to PCTs

66

PRION

52

Multiple Sclerosis service improvements

42

NHS funded nursing care—short-term respite care adjustment

4

National specialist commissioning—pancreatic transplantation

-2,473

Cancer registries

-8,770

National specialist commissioning—children and adolescent mental health services

-12,109

Old long stay

-44,934

Total

5,817,479

To ask the Secretary of State for Health which programmes have been funded by her Department's Centrally Funded Initiatives and Services and Special Allocations (CFISSA) budget so far in 2006-07 financial year; what the value was of each of those programmes; what the total expenditure on the CFISSA budget was in each year since 1997-98; and what the anticipated expenditure on the CFISSA budget is expected to be in 2007-08. (130410)

Tables are available in the Library providing:

(a) listings of all allocations by budget title and value to National Health Service organisations from 1997-98 to 2005-06;

(b) total expenditure of the centrally funded, initiatives services and special allocations (CFISSA) programme from 1997-98 to 2005-06;

(c) special allocations issued with initial allocations from 1997-98 to 2005-06; and

(d) special allocations and associated budgets issued to NHS organisations as additional allocations (and which are included in the tables described in (a) and (b) above).

Full year 2006-07 information and anticipated expenditure in 2007-08 on centrally funded initiatives services and special allocations is not yet available. This information will be contained within the 2006-07 Departmental Report that has an estimated publishing date of May 2007.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 28 March 2007, on changes to the NHS resource accounting and budgeting (RAB) regime, why the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was omitted from the list of trusts receiving the reversal of RAB income deductions. (131372)

The reversals set out in the written ministerial statement of 28 March 2007, Official Report, columns 96-98WS, are for income deductions applied to NHS trusts in 2006-07 as a result of deficits incurred during 2005-06. No such income deduction was made to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust as the trust’s financial position reported in the 2005-06 final accounts was a surplus of £112,000.

Under the new rules, NHS trusts that had income deductions made in years prior to 2006-07 will be able to agree a disregard for these deductions in the calculation of their statutory breakeven duty. This means that they will no longer have to generate a surplus to recover any part of their cumulative deficit that arose solely from the application of resource accounting and budgeting (RAB) income deductions.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust will therefore need to agree with its auditors the impact on its breakeven duty of any RAB income deductions applied in 2005-06 and earlier years. The breakeven note would then be adjusted to exclude these in the 2006-07 final accounts.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of local improvement finance trusts in the (a) commissioning, (b) financing and (c) building of local primary care health facilities. (131392)

The NHS Plan (2000) introduced national health service local improvement finance trusts (LIFT) as a way of supporting the delivery of more investment in primary care premises. LIFT is providing modern integrated super surgeries, often in the heart of deprived communities. As of 31 March 2007, it has delivered 115 new buildings open to patients with another 74 under construction, supported by over £1.2 billion of investment. The NAO report on LIFT, Innovation in the NHS, noted that LIFT is well designed and offered advantages over other forms of procurement.

Information is not held centrally to allow for an assessment on the effectiveness of the buildings commissioning period for each scheme. It is for PCTs to manage the commissioning of their new facilities.

Information is not held centrally to allow for an assessment of effectiveness of the financing of each individual scheme. However, as part of the business case approval for each scheme financing terms are assessed, with the support of expert financial advice. The Department is also assembling benchmarking data to support this analysis in current and future LIFTs.

The Department as part of its Better Healthcare Buildings policy initiative is working closely with the commission for architecture and the built environment who have undertaken a detailed design quality survey of a representational cross section of primary care buildings procured under the LIFT initiative. They are preparing findings, which the Department will learn from and implement policy aimed at continually raising the standards of LIFT buildings.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the NHS accounts for the financial year 2006-07 will be published. (131740)

Individual national health service accounts must, by statute, be published locally on or before 30 September 2007. The Department expects that this date will be met or bettered by all NHS bodies.

The Department plans to submit draft summarised accounts that consolidate NHS bodies' accounts to the National Audit Office for review by 20 August 2007. The date of publication is a matter for the Comptroller and Auditor General and depends on the date of completion of the audit process.