27.05.15
CCGs postpone investment to stay within budget
CCGs managed to underspend their combined budgets by £151m in the 2014-15 financial year, but only because they deferred significant amounts of investment and paid less than planned under the Quality Premium scheme.
Paul Baumann, NHS England’s chief financial officer, says in papers going to this week’s board meeting that the 0.2% reduction in allocation spend has benefited from “significant one-off items”.
“Firstly, CCGs have reassessed their rate of spending against legacy continuing healthcare claims, resulting in £156m of the originally estimated 2014-15 liability moving to future years.,” he said.
“Secondly, payments under the Quality Premium scheme for CCGs were £67m lower than planned.”
But if these two items are excluded, CCGs had a small net overspend.
Baumann added that limiting the overspend required “considerable deferral of investment”, both by some CCGs others, in recognition of the overall NHS position.
Performance varied considerably across the 211 CCGs. The 10 with the biggest positive variances from plan delivering a combined underspend of £155m, whilst the 10 CCGs with the biggest negative variances delivered a combined overspend of £171m.
NHS England also revealed the final position returned by Specialised Commissioning was an overspend of £214m, substantially down on last year, with £136m of this related to overspends on the Cancer Drugs Fund.
Earlier this month it was revealed that Bedfordshire CCG’s deficit spiralled to £43.2m by the end of 2014-15, the largest of any CCG. It had predicted a £4.9m surplus at the start of 2014-15, but by November its forecast deteriorated to a £24m deficit.
In April’s board report, Northern, Eastern and Western Devon CCG (NEW Devon CCG) revealed that to the end of February the forecast year-end position is expected to be a cumulative deficit of £41.6m, up from the originally forecast £29.3m.
Hugh Groves, chief finance officer at NEW Devon CCG, said there had been a net worsening of £1.64m, with two particular problem areas being the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS FT contract and prescribing.
“In general during the course of 2014-15 there has been an overall trend of increasing activity across the acute contracts, whether this is generated through an increase in referrals or through emergency activity through increased A&E attendances,” he said. “Also the increasing growth in CHC (Continuing Healthcare) has played [sic] a significant burden on the CCG’s financial positon.”
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