Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many clinical commissioning groups are running financial deficits requiring financial support from neighbouring clinical commissioning groups.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS England has responsibility for clinical commissioning group (CCG) funding.

We are informed by NHS England that there is no provision for financial support between CCGs, and therefore no regime for repayment and/or interest.

CCGs are expected to live within the resources allocated to them, but in rare cases where this is not possible, and subject to detailed assurance by NHS England Area Teams, a deficit plan is agreed and centrally funded. CCGs are expected to repay such funding over an agreed timescale in accordance with an approved recovery plan. The same applies if a CCG with a planned surplus records a deficit in year.

In some cases, neighbouring CCGs have opted to enter into risk sharing or investment pooling arrangements, for example, in the context of shared commissioning arrangements or to facilitate wider health economy transformation programmes. The precise arrangements for such risk sharing are a matter for local determination by the governing bodies concerned, and they would be expected to ensure that these agreements were transparently documented and did not impact adversely on patient services.