Summary Of Operating Framework 2010/11

Key Points

• National priorities remain the same as last year.
• Average funding growth for PCTs will be 5.5 per cent for 2010/11
• There will be a real-terms freeze in funding for frontline services - defined as 95 per cent of the NHS budget - with cuts to the remainder in the following two years.
• £10bn of efficiency savings are required by 2012/12, as an interim milestone toward £15bn-£20bn of efficiencies by 2013.14. These savings will be recycled back into the NHS.
• PCTs are required to agree proposals for the future organisational structure of PCT provided community services with SHAs by March 2010.
• The government is consulting on adding legal rights to maximum waiting times - or the offer to alternative providers - to the NHS Constitution. PCTs will need to ensure these rights are delivered from April 2010.

This year, 2010/11, is both the final one in the current planning round and the first in which the NHS needs to be properly prepared to meet the challenges set out in NHS 2010-2015: from good to great. This document sets out a five year vision for the NHS and should be read in conjunction with the operating framework, which operationalises the first year of that vision.

The scale of the public sector deficit and record levels of borrowing mean the NHS will be operating in the context of severe restraint on spending across the public sector in the years ahead, although it will see funding growth in line with recent years for 2010/11.

But the operating framework and the white paper and the PBR make clear that NHS organisations must prepare now for a freeze on funding and reductions to the health budget in 2011/2013; ‘standing still is not an option'. These documents are closely inter-related but run to different timescales.

To download the full summary click on the following link:

Operating Framework Summary