Source: The King’s Fund- Health Management and Policy Alert
It is a time of transition in NHS finance. The planned recovery from years of deficits and debts that plagued parts of the NHS in recent years has been hit by the enormity of the Covid-19 shock. Alongside this planned recovery, the NHS has been moving away from its decades-long journey toward competition between individual organisations and using market-like approaches to improve performance, to a design based on collaboration and improving population health. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the NHS was working to restore financial health and deliver on fundamental reform; now, it must achieve these objectives with the added challenge of recovering from the damage of Covid-19.
A new financial architecture for the NHS requires coherence and balance, and a recognition that any national financial strategy will be heavily mediated by the quality of local relationships. The King’s Fund new long read discusses how lessons from the recent history of NHS finances can help the system plan for the future.
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