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<p>National Health Service provider organisations invest in excess of £3 billion of
capital annually and are responsible for keeping their estate and infrastructure safe,
by prioritising their available capital and revenue budgets accordingly. The Department
is working with NHS England and NHS Improvement so that Trusts have the ability to
spend to keep their estate safe.</p><p>Data from the annual Estates Return Information
Collection (ERIC) suggests level of backlog in the NHS estate has increased across
recent years. To support providers maintain existing estates and invest in new facilities,
the Government announced £3.9 billion of additional capital funding in the 2017 Spring
and Autumn Budgets, and the Government has been clear that it will consider proposals
from the NHS to support transformation of the estate as part of the forthcoming Spending
Review.</p><p>Both NHS trusts and foundation trusts receive income on the same basis,
and where additional capital investment funding is provided centrally there are no
differences between access to, or assessment processes, for NHS trusts and NHS foundation
trusts. Although NHS trusts are subject to some additional layers of governance in
respect of capital investment when compared to NHS foundation trusts, these are not
intended to impose limitations on their capital spending, rather to provide the balance
between trusts’ freedom to manage their own capital investments with an assurance
process for the approval of capital investment plans in the context of the wider financial
sustainability of the bodies.</p>
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