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NHS requires at least £10bn in capital funding to implement STPs

NHS requires at least £10bn in capital funding to implement STPs
3 April 2017



The NHS will need at least £10bn to fund sustainability and transformation plans on top of 'a similar sum' to deliver the Five Year Forward View, a government review of the health service’s estates and property has found.

A review conducted by Sir Robert Naylor found that his assessment of the capital needed to implement the plans doesn’t include a £5bn fee for ‘backlog maintenance’ on top of the £10bn for STPs.

The NHS will need at least £10bn to fund sustainability and transformation plans on top of 'a similar sum' to deliver the Five Year Forward View, a government review of the health service’s estates and property has found.

A review conducted by Sir Robert Naylor found that his assessment of the capital needed to implement the plans doesn’t include a £5bn fee for ‘backlog maintenance’ on top of the £10bn for STPs.

The money could be raised ‘through property disposals, private capital (for primary care) and from HM Treasury’, according to the report.

But it said the NHS needs to develop a ‘robust capital strategy’ to determine how much needs to be invested into the STPs, including assessing their estates plans ‘against targets’.

The report said: ‘STPs and their providers, which fail to develop sufficiently stretching plans, should not be granted access to capital funding either through grants, loans or private finance until they have agreed plans to improve performance against benchmarks.’

The Government appointed Sir Robert, chief executive of University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust, in February 2016 to act as a national advisor on NHS property and estates.

Dr Mark Porter, British Medical Association council chair, said: ‘The NHS simply doesn’t have this kind of money available and these plans are fast becoming unworkable.

He added: ‘Given the scale of the savings required in each area, there is a real risk that these transformation plans will be used as a cover for delivering cuts, starving services of resource and patients of vital care.’

A BMA analysis previously found that £9.5bn in capital funding would be needed to successfully implement STPs.

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