NAO calls sustainability of current NHS spending strategy into question

The National Audit Office (NAO) has called into question the sustainability of the short-term approach of current NHS spending strategies.

According to the latest report from the auditing body, additional funding designed to help the NHS get on a financially sustainable footing is generally being spent spent instead on coping with existing pressures, meaning it is not having long-term benefits.

In 2016-17, a GBP 1.8 billion Sustainability and Transformation Fund was allocated to help the NHS survive on significantly reduced funding growth from 2017-18 onwards, but the health service is still struggling to manage increased activity and demand within its budget.

This is because measures intended to rebalance NHS finances are diverting money away from longer-term transformation, with clinical commissioning groups and trusts increasingly reliant on one-off measures to deliver savings, rather than achieving recurrent cost reductions.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Repeated short-term funding-boosts could turn into the new normal, when the public purse may be better served by a long-term funding settlement that provides a stable platform for sustained improvements."

As such, the NAO called for a move towards aligning nationwide incentives, regulation and processes, as well as reassessing how best to allocate sustainability and transformation funding.

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