NHS: Finance

Mr. Stephen O'Brien
To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what projections his Department has made of the change in each NHS hospital trust’s income resulting from the implementation of HRG4;

(2) how much each hospital earned under HRG3 in the latest year for which figures are available; and what estimate he has made of the income each would have earned for the same work in that period under HRG4.

Mr. Bradshaw
Information about national health service hospital income from the national tariff is not separately identified in their accounts. However, the Department has collected this information as part of the central payment mechanism for the market forces factor (MFF) since 2005-06. The latest available information is for 2007-08, when healthcare resource group (HRG) version 3.5 was the tariff currency, and is shown in table 1.

The Department has made no estimate of what NHS hospital income would have been in 2007-08 under HRG4. However, the Department did consider the impact on NHS hospital national tariff income between 2008-09 and 2009-10 resulting from the move from HRG version 3.5 to HRG5 in 2009-10 and this is shown in table 2. Because this analysis also includes the impact of the revised MFF, and uses historical activity data from 2006-07 and 2007-08 and national assumptions which may vary locally, it is only an estimate of the actual impact of HRG4.

Copies of both tables have been placed in the Library.

Mr. Stephen O'Brien
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what (a) methodology and (b) criteria are used to determine the NHS Tariff.

Mr. Bradshaw
The methodology and criteria underpinning the calculation of the national tariff are described in a step-by-step guide, which is published annually. The guide for 2009-10 has been placed in the Library and is available on the Department’s website at:

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_094182

Mr. Stephen O'Brien
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the (a) job description, (b) salary band and (c) grade is of each official in his Department working on the NHS Tariff.

Mr. Bradshaw
The following table includes information for all staff involved in work which contributes to the production of the national tariff, including the collection of reference costs and costing policy, future tariff development and governance procedures. The salary scales shown are the minimum and maximum salaries for staff, who can be based in either Leeds or London.

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|Grade                   |Salary band in 2009-10|Headcount|Job descriptions                                                                                            |
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|Senior Civil Service 2  |£82,900 - £162,500    |1        |Head of classification and costing                                                                          |
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|Senior Civil Service 1  |£58,200 - £117,750    |2        |Heads of development and operations                                                                         |
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|Grade 6                 |£54,617 - £73,828     |3        |Senior managers for currency and tariff development, tariff pricing and structure, governance and evaluation|
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|Grade 7                 |£43,348 - £60,962     |7        |Section heads for policy, costing, analysis and economic advice                                             |
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|Senior Executive Officer|£32,148 - £45,118     |11       |Senior policy, tariff development, costing and analysis managers                                            |
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|Fast Stream             |£28,884 - £41,546     |4        |Assistant economists and policy managers                                                                    |
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|Higher Executive Officer|£25,534 - £33,019     |4        |Assistant analysis and business managers                                                                    |
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|Executive Officer       |£20,417 - £28,112     |3        |Policy and business support                                                                                 |
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|Administrative Officer  |£16,229 - £19,478     |1        |Administrative support                                                                                      |
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