The NHS has been handed a new five-year funding settlement worth £20.5 billion – this will begin in April 2019. The decision taken by the Government was in part informed by a major piece of analysis that the NHS Confederation commissioned the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Health Foundation to undertake in 2018. Read 'Securing the future: Funding health and social care to the 2030s'.
Despite the NHS’s new settlement, the funding issue remains. The 3.4% per year settlement is below what independent experts believe is needed. And it does not include important other areas that fall outside of the funding settlement, including public health, education and training, capital and social care. We will continue to push for an appropriate settlement for these areas ahead of the 2019 spending review.
What we are doing
We will support our members and the wider NHS to make the transition from a decade of austerity and in the transition towards financial planning at system level. We will also continue to make the case for greater financial autonomy for members and systems as we heads towards a new financial regime.
We will also lead a coalition of health organisations in a major campaign – Health for Care – to secure reform and a long-term funding settlement for social care. This is the right thing to do but also essential if the NHS is to achieve the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan.
We are also keen to support more acute and community trust members to engage with local, non-NHS partners to develop local growth opportunities. This will include a new project exploring the role of NHS teaching hospitals as ‘anchor institutions’.