News / NHS England forecasts surplus despite small CCG overspend

Month 4 figures presented at the NHS England September board meeting said CCGs had overspent by £13m in the year to date and forecast the same level of overspend at year-end.

However, when other spending programmes are added in, such as direct commissioning, NHS England has a £16m underspend in the year to date and forecast a £15m underspend for the full year.

While NHS England forecasts an underspend in direct commissioning of £15m for the year, with £10m in the first four months, it predicted programme and running costs would be £14m underspent at year-end. NHS England said the forecast £482m cumulative surplus represented a £385m reduction in the cumulative surplus of £867m brought forward from 2013/14.

According to the performance report, 204 of the 211 CCGs are forecasting in line with plan, while two are doing slightly better than planned.

Five CCGs are forecasting overspends against plan, including two with unplanned deficits. Financial recovery plans are being prepared by these CCGs and will be assured by their area teams.

QIPP productivity savings were projected to be £1,959m, against a plan of £2,075m. Most schemes were transactional, NHS England said. Initiatives to transform services and unidentified schemes were responsible for the shortfall.

NHS England chief financial officer Paul Baumann told the board that there were risks to the forecast position amounting to £381m.

'As we go through the deep dive [analysis] over the next month, we will need to look very carefully at which of those risks are materialising,' he said, 'and then we will have to be quite speedy about bringing in corrective action if that turns out to be necessary.'