THE NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Update on 2016/17 Planning for Governors (April 2016)

As part of the Planning process, organisations within the NHS are required to produce two plans:

i)All local health and care systems will be required to develop a five year Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), covering the period October 2016 to March 2021 subject to a formal assessment in July 2016 following submission in June 2016.

ii)All NHS Foundation Trusts and Trusts are required to develop and submit one year operational plans for 2016/17. These plans will need to be ‘consistent with the emerging STP’ and in time to enable contract sign off by end of March 2016.

Operational Plans - the guidance required Trusts to outline details of their approaches to:

  • Activity Planning
  • Quality Planning
  • Workforce Planning
  • Financial Planning

Draft Operational Plan – submitted to Monitor by the deadline of 8th February 2016

Feedback received on 24th April – largely focused on finance and activity. Monitor happy with Workforce and Quality information.

Operational Plan – submitted to Monitor by the revised deadline of 18th April 2016 (NB original deadline was 11th April however this was changed to reflect delays nationally in contract sign off).

Key changes between the Draft and Operational Plan related to the finances and more specifically the Control Total. Governors will recall that the Trust was offered £19.4 million in return for the delivery of a £39.6 million surplus. The Trust rejected this “offer” but made an alternative one to NHSI; to date this has not been accepted.

Sustainability and Transformation Plan/s

A system wide plan that forms part of the 2016/17 Planning Guidance. Led by the CCG, the STP is due for submission on 30th June 2016.

A list of ‘national challenges’ are provided to ‘help local systems set out their ambitions for their populations’. Key questions include:

i)How will you close the health and wellbeing gap? – with reference to prevention, patient activation, choice and control, and community engagement;

ii)How will you drive transformation to close the care and quality gap? – with reference to new care model development, improving against clinical priorities, and roll out of digital healthcare;

iii)How will you close the finance and efficiency gap? – With reference to achievement of financial balance across local health systems and efficiency of NHS services.

Nationally, there are 44 planning footprints as shown below:

Each STP Footprint has a lead. For the North of England these include:

As discussed previously, the Trust has identified that it is likely to be involved in 9 planning footprints as shown in the table below:

Services / Footprint
1 / Highly specialised services / England
2 / Specialised services / North East and Cumbria
3 / Urgent Care (inc. U&E Vanguard) / North East and Cumbria
4 / Cancer services / North East and Cumbria
5 / Devolution (NECA) / North East Combined Authority (NECA)
6 / Acute services (non-Newcastle) / Northumberland, Tyne and Wear
7 / Acute, community and primary care / Newcastle Gateshead
8 / Acute, community, out of hospital, Primary Care / Newcastle
9 / Trust Operational Plan (2016/17) / Foundation Trust

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Footprint:

As part of the 2016/17 planning process, STPs are required to make a number of returns to NHS England between now and the 30th June 2016 submission date, demonstrating how they will close the 3 gaps mentioned above.

This work will continue to progress in the coming months.

Nicola Bruce

Assistant Director – Business Strategy and Planning

April 2016