PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
NHS Trusts: Contracts (5 June 2018)

The NHS Standard Contract, which is used by clinical commissioning groups for all contracts with hospital providers of National Health Service healthcare services, sets out the consequences of breaches of the waiting time standards and other requirements. In many cases, this consequence is in the form of a financial sanction.

Where a provider breaches a national standard set out in the Contract, prior to April 2016 it was mandatory, under the Contract, for the commissioner to apply the relevant financial sanction. This changed from April 2016, when the application of the principal sanctions (for accident and emergency waiting times, cancer waiting times and waiting times for elective care) being suspended for those NHS trusts and foundations trusts in the national Sustainability and Transformation Fund (STF). Trusts which signed up to the conditions of the STF, including in particular the delivery of a financial control total, were exempted from sanctions. Since April 2018, the arrangement has remained similar in principle, although the STF has now been renamed the Provider Sustainability Fund (PSF) and the range of sanctions suspended has been broadened.

The great majority of trusts have signed up to the STF/PSF conditions since April 2016 and have been protected from financial sanctions as a result.