The proposals made by Monitor and NHS England for the 2016/17 national tariff payment system reflect a desire to offer stability to NHS providers in an extremely challenging financial climate. However, there a number of repercussions and risks which we believe Monitor and NHS England should be cognisant of, and seek to remedy where possible, if moving forward with this approach.
Summary
- The RCP believes it is critical to develop a payment system which discourages perverse incentives and encourages innovation, best practice and high quality medicine which meets the needs of patients.
- The RCP encourages Monitor/NHS Improvement and NHS England to think carefully about how best to most effectively engage, support and utilise the vast amount of skills, experience, knowledge of clinicians and NHS staff who feed into the range of work carried out by both organisations.
- We suggest that Monitor/NHS Improvement and NHS England should explore with some urgency, whether the £1.8 billion Sustainability Transformation Fund could be used to alleviate the impact on some of the specialties which will be most adversely affected by the failure to move to HRG4+.
- The RCP strongly encourages Monitor/NHS Improvement and NHS England to give careful consideration as to whether an escalated implementation of HRG4+ would be possible in the 2017/18 financial year.
Contact
For more information please contact the RCP's policy team via email on policy@rcplondon.ac.uk
