Commissioning Board gets additional funding

The NHS Commissioning Board (NHSCB) has been granted an additional £35 million to fund extra staff and meet unforeseen cost pressures.

Progress Update on Design of the NHSCB outlined how additional staffing requirements and a number of other issues had increased the Board’s budget from £492m to £527m.

A spokesperson for the DH said the additional funding is “not new money” and the £35m was “held as a contingency” until the future responsibilities of the Board “became more defined”.

The money will be divided with £8.7m allocated towards staffing costs and £1.5m going towards the “clinical expertise and leadership into commissioning specialised services”, the report said.

Seven million pounds will be used on the Board’s Patient Engagement, Insight and Informatics directorate it will inherit from the DH when it becomes fully functional.

A further £200,000 was required by the Board for an additional director post to be shared between the medical and transformational directorates focused on inequalities.

It is unknown how the additional £17.8 million will be used.

“This funding has now been released,” said a DH spokesperson.