Radical changes to the NHS payment system have been revealed in a report from NHS England and foundation trust regulator Monitor.
Reforming the Payment System for NHS Services: supporting the five year forward view, will enable the NHS to introduce new models of care.
This will help the NHS implement its commitment to integrate primary and secondary services and to provide a payment system more in line with NHS England’s Five Year Forward View launched in October 2014.
Radical changes to the NHS payment system have been revealed in a report from NHS England and foundation trust regulator Monitor.
Reforming the Payment System for NHS Services: supporting the five year forward view, will enable the NHS to introduce new models of care.
This will help the NHS implement its commitment to integrate primary and secondary services and to provide a payment system more in line with NHS England’s Five Year Forward View launched in October 2014.
The use of ‘capitation’ payments – which transfer financial risk to the service providers – will bring hospitals, community and mental health services into line with the way GPs are funded.
This would particularly benefit the frail elderly and those with multiple care needs, such as the 17 million people with long-term conditions.
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, said: “NHS payment systems are a means, not an end. Much of the current tariff system was designed to help the NHS achieve a set of goals in the 2000s, such as slashing long waiting lists for routine surgery, which have been achieved.
“The new challenge is to support the triple integration of care…between primary and specialist care, physical and mental health services and health and social care. Today we signal a new, locally flexible direction of travel to advance these goals.”
Monitor and NHS England are encouraging commissioners and providers to adopt this new payment model when negotiating price-setting arrangements.
It is proposed that such arrangements should increasingly become the status quo in line with reforms to the national tariff.
