Written question asked by Lord Davies of Stamford (Conservative) on Tuesday, 10 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 12 January 2006. It was answered by Liam Byrne (Labour) on Monday, 6 February 2006 on behalf of the Department of Health.

NHS Finance

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of the incremental funding available to the NHS since 1997 has been spent on (a) higher wages, (b) shorter working hours, (c) administrative costs including contractors, consultants and external legal expenses and (d) incremental medical services provided to patients.

Answer

The table gives details of the attribution of additional resources spent across the national health service since 1997.

	Cash accounting increase1997–98 to 2000–01	Stage two resource accounting increase 2000–01 to 2004–05
Real increase in total NHS DEL (£ billion)	7.6	20.0

Apportionment of Increase:
Staff and pay (Percentage)	47	53
Of which:
Higher wages (Percentage)	33	29
Additional staff (Percentage)	13	23

Drugs (Percentage)	17	13
Others (Percentage)	36	34

Note: This analysis may not be directly comparable to previously published analyses due to revisions to forecasts, estimates and GDP deflators.
⁽⁴³⁾ Figures calculated in 2004–05 prices by applying Gross Domestic Product deflator.
⁽⁴⁴⁾ From 2003–04 onwards, the Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) for the Department was increased by a switch from the exchequers annually managed expenditure spending to cover the increased costs of pensions. An addition of £1.6 billion was made to the NHS DEL to cover these costs from 2003–04 onwards. While this change affected the overall level of NHS Expenditure, they did not increase or decrease the spending power of the NHS. It is cost neutral. For purpose of comparability, the extra expenditure has been stripped out of pay and included in others.
⁽⁴⁵⁾ Pay has been estimated by combining NHS Accounts information, accounts data for foundation trusts from Monitor, and general medical practice data based on latest information on the new general practitioner contract. Increases in staff are based on census returns, the proportion of extra funds to new staff and pay is based annual comparison of growth in pay bill with growth in NHS staff numbers (weighted by pay).
⁽⁴⁶⁾ Examples of other incremental expenditure include: buildings, equipment, training, research and development, supplies of services.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 42187; 442 c983-5W;442 c983-5W
Session: 2005-06
Subjects: Administration Health services Expenditure NHS Pay Working hours
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk

NHS Finance

Secondary information

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