NHS providers disenfranchised from being able to object to the national tariff
29 October 2015
- Setting of national tariff prices for treatments is crucial to providing high quality care for all patients
- The objection mechanism is one of the only formal channels available to NHS providers to raise concerns about their ability to deliver the right quality of care
- After a consultation process, the “share of supply” objection threshold will be removed, and the proportion of commissioners or providers that must object is raised from 51 per cent to 66 per cent
- The initial national tariff proposal for this year was rejected by 37 per cent of providers, accounting for 75 per cent share of supply for the relevant services
- The ultimate answer lies in ensuring that providers are commissioned and paid appropriately for safe and high quality care
The objection mechanism is one of few formal channels for the NHS frontline to provide an early warning signal if proposals are undeliverable and should only be used in exceptional circumstances as was the case in 2014. The majority of providers were in deficit this financial year, and NHS trusts across the acute, ambulance, community and mental health sectors raised formal objections to the tariff last year which led to the proposals being revised and £500 million for the provider sector.
The proposed measures will make it mathematically impossible for NHS foundation trusts and trusts on their own to trigger the formal objection process in future.
On 29 October the Department of Health published its response to the consultation on the tariff objection mechanism. The department has proposed a series of measures that will make it more difficult for providers to trigger the formal objection process in future. These measures are now undergoing the required legislative process to come in to force for the 2016/17 tariff statutory consultation notice.
Saffron Cordery, director of policy and strategy, said: “Raising the objection threshold to 66% and abolishing objections “by share of supply” component make it mathematically impossible for NHS foundation trusts and trusts to trigger the objection mechanism, despite NHS providers providing over 95% of all services covered by the tariff.