PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
NHS: Finance (16 December 2022)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the impact of (a) changes in national insurance and (b) the increase in inflation on plans for elective recovery.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

The funding associated with the former Health and Social Care Levy continues to be available to the National Health Service and social care. This includes the plans to spend £8 billion over three years to help tackle elective backlogs in the NHS. However, Departmental budgets have been adjusted for the fact they are no longer paying the additional employer costs associated with the Levy.

We recognise that inflation will have an impact into future years and the Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the NHS in England, enabling rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance. This means that the NHS’s budget in England will continue to grow in real terms by 1.9% in 2023/24. The NHS will set out full recovery plans for the urgent and emergency care and primary care systems and continue to deliver on the Elective Recovery Plan. In addition, the Chancellor announced up to £2.8 billion in 2023/24 in England and £4.7 billion in 2024/25 to support the adult social care sector. This includes £1 billion to directly support discharges from hospital into the community, to support the NHS.

We expect Local Authorities go beyond meeting inflationary pressures and use this historic funding boost to deliver tangible improvements in adult social care services. These improvements should address discharge delays, social care waiting times, low fee rates, and workforce pressures.

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
9 January 2023