We have submitted our representation to the Treasury setting out our asks to the government ahead of the Budget on 22 November.

Key points include:

• The government now has a clear choice between increasing NHS funding to a level that enables recovery of the key NHS constitutional performance standards or maintaining current proposed funding levels and setting performance standards at a lower level.
  
  
• We welcome the government’s indication of its intention to end public sector pay restraint, and encourage the government to now set out a plan for how this will apply to the NHS. It is vital that any extra pay is fully funded.
  
  
• Additional capital funding provided directly by government is required to allow providers to deliver transformation and to address a growing and concerning maintenance backlog.
  
  
• The government can do more to help the NHS respond to the challenges it faces. In particular, there are two practical steps government could take: 
  
  
  • The work arising from the Carter Review and the Getting it right first time programme has been at its most effective when trusts have been given the right support and time to deliver. The national NHS bodies should lead an exercise to scope in detail what further support trusts require to accelerate their work in identifying and delivering efficiencies. We believe that a low level of investment in extra change and project management, analytical and clinical liaison resource at trust level could release significant amounts of faster savings.
    
    
  • Given sustained and deepening pressure on NHS resources, the NHS must ensure that it devotes as high a proportion of the NHS budget to front line care as possible. We believe a formal urgent review of non-frontline spend in the NHS should therefore be undertaken. This should include commissioning costs and further reductions to administration budgets from the Department of Health and its arm’s length bodies. The review should target a specific amount of money to reallocate to the frontline by the start of 2018/19 or the half year point.