Download or read book Report on the NHS summarised accounts 2006 07 written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-12-11 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last financial year the Department of Health made financial recovery priority and managed to turn the deficits of 2005-06 to a surplus of £505 million in 2006-07. The Comptroller and Auditor General is the statutory auditor of the financial accounts of the NHS and has the duty to certify and report to Parliament on them. This report is published alongside in the NHS Summarised Accounts to provide more detail on the financial performance of the NHS, how it moved into balance and the challenges that face it in the future.
Download or read book Report on the NHS Summarised Accounts 2006 07 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Accounts Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department of Health (the 'Department') and the NHS achieved a surplus of £515 million in 2006-07, representing 0.6 per cent of total available resources. This followed two years of rising deficits, and the Department, working with the NHS, has done well in restoring overall financial balance. While the national picture is one of financial surplus there remain variations in financial performance. The surplus is concentrated in Strategic Health Authorities, whilst overall Primary Care Trusts and NHS Trusts remain in deficit Of the 372 NHS organisations, 82 recorded a deficit of £917 million, with 80 per cent of this being reported by just 10 per cent of NHS organisations. There are also regional variations, with the East of England Strategic Health Authority area having a deficit of £153 million and the North West achieving a £189 million surplus. Financial recovery is therefore inconsistent and more needs to be done so that all parts of the NHS achieve financial balance. The Committee concludes that the return to financial balance is the result of the Department's tighter performance management of NHS finances in the way funding flowed through the NHS together with a programme of support for local organisations with particular financial difficulties. In the short term, this largely centralist approach was appropriate. For the future if the NHS is to remain in financial balance more health organisations locally need to improve their financial management. Failure to keep a tight grip on financial performance will undermine health care for patients.
Download or read book Report on the NHS Summarised Accounts written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book NHS England summarised accounts 2006 2007 written by Great Britain: Department of Health and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-12-11 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In continuation of HC no. 742 of session 2006-07
Download or read book Financial Management in the NHS written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This National Audit Office report (HCP 63-I, session 2008-09, ISBN 9780102954418), looks at the financial performance of, and financial management in, the NHS during 2007-08. It also explains some of the issues which are likely to provide financial challenges for the NHS in 2008-09 and beyond. Where the report refers to performance of the NHS it covers the performance of Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts and NHS Trusts, as reported in the NHS Summarised Accounts (ISBN 9780103288079). The report also contains an analysis of the financial performance of NHS foundation trusts.
Download or read book NHS pay modernisation in England written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-06-18 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agenda for Change, the pay modernisation programme for 1.1 million NHS staff in England, representing a pay bill of £28 billion in 2007-08, was implemented between December 2004 and December 2006. It covered all NHS staff, except doctors, dentists and senior managers. Agenda for Change introduced a job evaluation scheme and harmonised employment terms and conditions for the multitude of jobs within the NHS. A key part of the programme is a process for encouraging staff development and improving staff performance known as the Knowledge and Skills Framework. Agenda for Change was expected to bring about new ways of working which would contribute to improved patient care and to more efficient delivery of services. Total savings of £1.3 billion over the first five years were predicted. These were to come from improvements in productivity of 1.1 to 1.5 per cent a year, reductions in equal pay claims, reduced use of agency staff and more controllable pay costs. The Department and NHS Trusts did not establish ways of measuring the effects of Agenda for Change and there is no active benefits realisation plan. The NHS pay bill for the staff covered by Agenda for Change has risen by 5.2 per cent a year on average since 2004-05 while productivity fell by 2.5 per cent a year on average between 2001 and 2005. By autumn 2008 (nearly two years after Trusts had completed transferring staff to Agenda for Change terms and conditions and pay rates) only 54 per cent of staff had had a knowledge and skills review.
Download or read book Financial Management in the NHS written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the financial performance of the NHS and NHS Foundation Trusts. The Department of Health and the NHS achieved a surplus of £1,674 million in 2007-08. The surplus was significantly higher than the original forecast of £916 million and more than three times that recorded in 2006-07 (£515 million). In 2006-07, the surplus was concentrated in the Strategic Health Authorities, which are administrative bodies, with the Primary Care Trust and NHS Trust sectors remaining in deficit. All sectors are now in surplus and the quality of financial management at individual NHS organisations improved during 2007-08. The surplus represents funding that was made available but which was not used and there is a real risk that patients lose out because the NHS is not spending its allocated funding on treating them. The Department has committed itself to making the surplus available to the NHS for spending in future years. Some long-standing financial problems affect a minority of trusts which remain in deficit, and some regional variations in financial performance persist. During a period of economic uncertainty when resources are severely stretched it is more important than ever that the NHS can demonstrate value for money and continuous improvements in productivity. The Department intends that the NHS should generate £15 billion in efficiency savings over the next three years. Going forward the Department and NHS face a number of challenges, including changes to the financial reporting framework and timetable, and further system reforms under which a quality element will be introduced into how NHS organisations are funded. The surplus generated and better financial management should, if maintained, help deal with the financial implications of meeting these challenges.
Download or read book National Health Service landscape review written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the value for money risks and implications of the Health and Social Care Bill. The Bill proposes a new model for the NHS focusing on patient outcomes. The proposals are intended to transform the NHS in England into a highly devolved, market-based model in which local commissioners and providers of health services are freed from central control, with an increased say for local authorities, patients and the public. Whilst the reforms could complement the imperative of achieving £20 billion efficiency gains by 2014/15, the reorganisation presents an additional challenge for the NHS. The health reforms are still at an early stage and key questions have yet to be addressed. It is vital that the Department creates robust accountability structures so that Parliament and the public can properly follow the taxpayers' pound and hold those responsible to account. The Committee is concerned that the Department has not yet developed a high quality risk management protocol for either the commissioning or providing bodies. The Department acknowledges that some health trusts and some GP practices have some way to go to achieve foundation trust status or become commissioning consortia. The Department must have effective systems in place to deal with failure so that whatever happens, the interests of both patients and taxpayers are protected. This report provides an overview of aspects of the reforms where Parliament requires clarification and draws out a number of risks associated with the transition to the new model that need to be managed.
Download or read book The New NHS written by Alison Talbot-Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Alison Talbot-Smith, an experienced doctor and researcher, and Professor Allyson M. Pollock, one of the UKs leading authorities on the NHS, give a lucid and incisive account of the new NHS – which has emerged from a far-reaching programme of market-oriented changes. Providing an authoritative and accessible overview of the new NHS, the book describes: the structures and functions of the new organizations in each of the devolved countries the funding of NHS services, education, training and research and resource allocation the regulation of the new NHS systems and workforce the relationships between the NHS, the Department of Health, local authorities and regulatory bodies, and between the NHS and the private sector the future implications of current policies. This is an indispensable resource for those working in healthcare today as clinicians, academics, researchers and managers. It will also be essential reading for academics, students, and researchers in related fields, as well as the general public.
Download or read book NHS Deficits written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-07-03 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NHS Deficits : Sixth report of session 2005-06, Vol. 2: Written Evidence
Download or read book DEFRA written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-07-07 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is an area of land containing habitats and wildlife which are of national or international importance. There are over 4,000 SSSI sites in England, protected through restrictions on activities and development which would adversely affect the sites. In 2000, the Department agreed a Public Service Agreement (PSA) target to bring 95 per cent of SSSI land area into a 'favourable' or 'recovering' condition by December 2010. The reported condition of sites has increased from 52 per cent of land area in target condition in December 2002 to 86 per cent in February 2009. The programme of SSSI condition assessments is not up-to-date and Natural England has put in place a programme of work to address the backlog of assessments by 2010, and has introduced quality assurance systems and guidelines to improve the consistency of its record keeping. Public expenditure on SSSIs has more than doubled over the past eight years, from £35.6 million a year in 2000-01 to £85.4 million in 2008-09. Financial incentives to encourage private landowners to conserve sites account for some 58 per cent of public expenditure. There is scope to improve the processes for identifying new sites and declassifying existing ones which are no longer of special interest.
Download or read book Planning for homes written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-07-02 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Housing developments require the approval of planning applications by local planning authorities (Authorities) before they can proceed. The Department for Communities and Local Government has implemented a number of measures in recent years to improve the performance of the development management stage of the planning process, in which applications are considered by Authorities, and to boost planning capacity. The measures include the setting of national targets for the speed of Authority decision-making, and the allocation of £68 million a year in Planning Delivery Grant (the Grant) to Authorities as a reward for meeting targets. The Grant, together with the setting of a 13 week target for decisions, has provided Authorities with an incentive to determine applications more quickly. Between 2002-03 and 2007-08, the percentage of major residential planning applications decided within 13 weeks almost doubled to 67 per cent. The Department's measures to improve the application process have met with mixed success. The Department has encouraged Authorities to hold pre-application discussions with developers, but there is a lack of clarity across Authorities about the purpose of these discussions. Some Authorities have not deployed sufficiently senior and experienced staff in the discussions, and Authorities have also taken different approaches to charging. Authorities' monitoring of developers' discharge of the conditions attached to planning permissions has been given a low priority, partly because of the focus on meeting the 13 week decision target. Authorities have spent about 95 per cent of Planning Delivery Grant on their planning functions, although the extent to which it has resulted in extra expenditure on planning is unclear.
Download or read book Renewing the physical infrastructure of English further education colleges written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001, the newly established Learning and Skills Council (the Council) took over a programme of capital works in the further education sector, to renew an estate that was too large, with much of it in poor condition and no longer fit for modern educational purposes. By March 2008, a total of £4.2 billion of projects had been approved 'in detail', including grant support from the Council of £1.7 billion, and about half of the estate had been renewed. Since April 2008, there has been a very serious failure in the management of the programme. It approved 'in principle' 79 colleges' projects, which required nearly £2.7 billion of Council funding more than it could afford. Before the current problems arose, the programme had achieved some successes, enabling the estate to be reduced in size, and the buildings are generally of good quality and are contributing to increased learner participation. The economic downturn could affect colleges' ability to fund projects by restricting their access to loan finance or their ability to sell surplus assets. The indebtedness of the sector is rising. The Council needs to monitor closely the financial health of some colleges, particularly those that have borrowings that exceed 40 per cent of their annual income. In 2010, the Council is expected to be dissolved and its functions taken over by the Skills Funding Agency and the Young People's Learning Agency. There needs to be clarity about responsibilities for the capital programme, and additional administrative burdens on colleges must be avoided.
Download or read book The efficiency of radio production at the BBC written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-06-04 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The BBC, in 2007-08, spent £462 million on its 16 radio stations. The BBC has set these 16 stations a combined target of efficiency savings of £69 million over the five year period to March 2013, representing an annual saving of 3 per cent. The BBC proposed unacceptable constraints on the Comptroller and Auditor General's access to information and his discretion to report to his findings to Parliament. The situation arose because the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have statutory unrestricted rights of access to the BBC, which he does with all other publicly funded bodies. The BBC has wide ranges of costs for similar programmes within and between its radio stations. The average cost for an hour of comparable music programmes on Radio 2 is more than 50 per cent higher than on Radio 1. For most breakfast and 'drivetime' slots, the BBC's costs are significantly higher than commercial stations, largely because of payments to presenters. The BBC has not used cost comparisons across its own programmes, or against commercial radio, to identify scope for efficiencies. The BBC uses its principal value for money indicator-cost per listener hour-to justify the cost of presenters on the basis of audience size, but the indicator does not provide assurance that programme costs are the minimum necessary to reach the required quality and intended audience. For most radio programmes, presenters' salaries represent the majority of programming costs, but the BBC is paying more than the market price for its top radio presenters. The BBC has prevented full public scrutiny of the value for money of expenditure on presenters by agreeing confidentiality clauses with some presenters.
Download or read book National Health Service landscape review written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-20 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This review summarizes the new arrangements for the NHS proposed in the Health White Paper (Cm. 7881, ISBN 9780101788120). In that paper the Government proposed a number of reforms to the structure and operation of the NHS, which have since been refined and developed in 'Liberating the NHS: legislative framework and next steps' (Cm. 7993 ISBN 9780101799324). The Health and Social Care Bill is designed to create the necessary legislative change. The review's purpose is to inform the Public Accounts Committee so that it can take stock of the proposals as they currently stand and discuss their implementation with the Department of Health and NHS.
Download or read book Mathematics Performance in Primary Schools written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007-08 the National Strategy to improve performance in primary mathematics cost some £104 million to implement. The Strategy aims to raise performance through extensive teaching and learning resources, supported by professional development programmes for teachers. In 2006-07 some £2.3 billion was spent on teaching mathematics in primary schools, out of a total expenditure of £10 billion on primary teaching and teaching support staff. Yet improvements in the mathematics results of primary school pupils have levelled off since 2000. In 2008, 79 per cent of pupils met the Government's expected standard at Key Stage 2 (age 11). This means that over one in five children are starting secondary school without a secure foundation in mathematics. There are persistent gaps in the mathematics performance of primary school pupils from different backgrounds and with different characteristics. In contrast to other subjects, boys are making more progress than girls. The biggest attainment gap-18 percentage points-is related to deprivation. Performance varies across England and between local authorities, with the percentage of pupils achieving the expected standard at KS2 ranging from 70 to 87 per cent. The Primary National Strategy has contributed to improvements in primary mathematics teaching and learning but weaknesses persist in vital areas such as the use and application of mathematics to real-life situations and the assessment of pupils' progress. The lack of depth in subject knowledge of many primary school teachers, and the lack of take-up of continuing professional development in mathematics, are major concerns which the Department has only recently begun to address through a ten year programme to train 13,000 specialist teachers.
Download or read book A National Health Service written by John Mohan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1995-03-20 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contrasts the proposals of the Royal Commission of the late 1970s with the very different set of priorities enshrined in the 1989 White Paper and describes how the changes between the two documents came about. It argues that the NHS reforms should be seen not as the inevitable product of technical developments nor as a consensus response to narrowly managerial difficulties within the NHS, but rather as part of a wider political strategy towards state provision of welfare. The book strongly emphasises the uneven geographical impacts of post-1979 changes, a topic usually underplayed by analysts of social policy, and draws heavily on previously unpublished material.
