Correspondence

NHS Improvement provider bulletin: 2 March 2016

Published 2 March 2016

Applies to England

1. Tell us what you think of the new tariff proposals

You’ve still got time to respond to our proposals for the 2016/17 national tariff on the following areas:

• the approach to setting prices for 2016/17
• the impact of the proposed changes to the national tariff
• the proposals for local payment arrangements
• the approach to enforcing the national tariff

We encourage you to comment on our proposals and to help you plan your response you can download a list of the consultation questions.

Please respond by 23.59 on Thursday 10 March 2016.

2. Framework agreements for agency spend: please ask your framework operators to apply for approval

As you know from Jim Mackey’s letters of 15 January and 18 February 2016, from 1 April 2016 you may only procure doctors, nurses and other staff through approved framework agreements.

We’ve asked framework operators to seek approval from Monitor or NHS Trust Development Authority (NHS TDA) for their framework arrangements by 5pm, Thursday 3 March. We encourage you to work with your framework operators now to comply with the price caps, including notifying them of agencies unwilling to meet the caps or adopting other unsupportive practices.

Based on the applications we’ve received by this date, we’ll announce approved framework agreements during week commencing 14 March 2016. However we will also accept applications on an ongoing basis.

If you have any questions about this, or the other agency rules, please contact [email protected]. We’ll shortly be publishing a consolidated document that brings together all of our guidance on agency rules.

Thank you for your ongoing efforts to reduce your agency expenditure.

3. Reminder: 2016/17 activity plan resubmissions for providers due 4 March

Following the email we sent on 22 February, we’d like to remind you that we require each NHS trust and foundation trust to make an additional submission of the activity plans you originally submitted on 8 February 2016.

Unfortunately, many of the plans submitted do not contain data of a high enough quality to provide a firm basis for contracts to be signed and delivered in 2016/17 and we want to ensure that each provider is making enough progress to have a robust plan in place for the final submission deadline of 11 April 2016.

Please follow the same process as before and submit your returns through UNIFY 2; you are only required to give provider activity numbers in this submission.

The deadline for resubmission of activity plans is midday on Friday 4 March 2016.

4. Performance of NHS trusts and foundation trusts in quarter 3 2015/16

The operational and financial performance report for quarter 3 2015/16 shows that NHS trusts and foundation trusts recorded a deficit to date of £2.26 billion. Our analysis shows however that NHS providers managed to make efficiency savings of £741 million between April and December 2015.

5. Events and webinars

Event name	Event details	Who is it for?	Why attend?	How can I sign up?
Monitor and NHS TDA regional chair networking events 2016	London, Friday 18 March; Southampton, Thursday 7 April; Manchester, Friday 6 May	NHS trust and foundation trust chairs.	Join one of our networking events for regional and financial updates, to hear best practice examples from your peers and for further updates on NHS Improvement from Ed Smith, NHS Improvement’s Chairman. These are regional events and so we’ll tailor the content for each location.	Find out more and sign up.
NHS Improvement induction day for provider chairs and chief executives	London, Wednesday 1 June	Newly appointed chairs and chief executives of NHS trusts and foundation trusts, who are looking for an overview of NHS Improvement, our functions and regulatory activities.	Come along to our free event and find out about the following areas that will help you in your role: the role of NHS Improvement; the legal framework; the regulatory framework; quality and quality governance; trust governance; and current issues in the NHS.	Email [email protected] to enquire about a place.

5.1 Webinar: Capitated payment - context and vision

Wednesday 9 March 2016

1.30 to 2.30pm

Who is it for?

• NHS trust and foundation trust finance directors and managers
• commissioning and contracting leads
• analytical leads

Why join?

This is the first in a series of joint webinars from NHS Improvement and NHS England on specific design stages in a capitated payment. These webinars aim to support providers and commissioners to make progress in developing and implementing a capitated payment or a whole population budget. Colleagues from the sector will be sharing their work and you can expect to hear more about the following areas:

• the context for payment development
• capitated payments and whole population budgets
• the building blocks needed for making progress with payment development
• transition and shadow testing

There will also be a chance to ask questions.

Register for this webinar now.

6. External updates

6.1 From NHS England’s Sustainable Improvement Team: upcoming 7 day self-assessment survey 30 March 2016

From 30 March, the Sustainable Improvement Team (formerly part of NHS Improving Quality) will be asking acute hospitals to complete a self-assessment of their services for emergency hospital admissions, against the 4 priority clinical standards for 7 day services.

This is the second survey collecting this data and the team has made changes to the survey tool based on key feedback from providers and clinical stakeholders. The survey tool is now shorter and removes possible ambiguities in the definitions of the clinical standards.

The survey requires a prospective case note review to be undertaken for a standardised 7 day period. We’d encourage you to ensure you complete the survey so that your data is collected and signed off as accurate well in advance of the upload deadline of 25 April.

You can find more details of the case note review and all other aspects of the survey on the Sustainable Improvement Team website and they will send you more information ahead of the start date.

You can also email the Sustainable Improvement Team for more information [email protected].

6.2 From NHS England: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) providers: volunteers required

NHS England is asking for CAMHS providers to get in touch if you are interested in participating in a pilot project to test and refine needs-based CAMHS currency groupings.

The pilot period will be 2 years and you can find out more on NHS England’s website.

6.3 From Future Focused Finance and The King’s Fund: new toolkit for collaborative teamwork across clinical and finance teams

Future Focused Finance and The King’s Fund have launched a toolkit to enable finance and clinical teams to reflect on how they work together and make improvements where necessary.

The toolkit has 7 stages and includes examples from pilot sites of clinicians working with finance colleagues.

Find out more and register to access the toolkit.

6.4 From NHS Employers: new pay calculator for junior doctors’ pay

NHS Employers has launched a pay calculator for junior doctors showing the breakdown of earnings under the new 2016 contract and the circumstances where pay protection may apply.

6.5 From the Department of Health (DH): non domestic rates – GP surgery rating lists reductions and refunds

On 29 February, DH sent a letter to all finance directors at NHS trusts and foundation trusts about arrangements that have been put in place by NHS England and NHS Property Services to support the claiming of potential rate rebates due on purpose built GP surgery properties. If you have any questions about claiming a refund or any other aspect of the letter, please email [email protected].