1 In December 2010, the House of Commons Health Committee published a report on expenditure on health and social care in the light of the 2010 Spending Review settlement. The settlement requires the NHS to make year-on-year efficiency gains of 4 per cent for the next four years, equating to up to £20 billion by 2014-15. These savings will be delivered through the NHS quality and efficiency improvement work, known as the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) challenge. The Committee concluded that "the scale of the challenge is daunting and the risks of non-delivery are significant".
2 The Department of Health is expected to publish its annual report and accounts in September 2011. The Committee will take evidence on this report in September and October with the intention of publishing a new report on health and social care expenditure by the end of October. The Committee expects that the principal focus of this report will be a review of the progress being made towards delivery of the QIPP challenge.
3 This memorandum has been prepared for the Health Committee to support its review. It sets out how the NHS, supported by the Department of Health, plans to deliver efficiency savings of up to £20 billion by 2014-15. The memorandum covers:
● how savings targets have been set across individual trusts and other health bodies;
● how those bodies plan to secure the necessary savings locally;
● how the Department and NHS plan to monitor progress; and
● how innovative practice is being shared.
The memorandum does not evaluate the progress against the planned efficiency savings as it is too soon to do so; monitoring of the delivery plans started in April 2011.
4 It is based on:
● a review of key departmental documents and other literature relating to the QIPP challenge;
● interviews with key departmental officials responsible for the QIPP challenge;
● a review of all ten strategic health authority's integrated plans which set out proposed QIPP savings along with a selection of primary care trust QIPP plans; and
● interviews with key officials at all ten strategic health authorities and a selection of primary care trusts.