NHS in talks with government over covid cash amid multibillion ‘overspend’

A recent NHS England finance report seen by HSJ says the organisation is still in discussions with the government over additional funding for the remainder of 2020-21, despite ministers announcing a budget uplift earlier this month.

In mid-July, the government said it “has provided an additional £3bn to the NHS [including] to allow them to continue to use additional hospital capacity from the independent sector, and to maintain the Nightingale hospitals, in their current state, until the end of March”.

The report also showed the NHS overspent its combined budgets by £2.6bn in the first two months of 2020-21, due to around £3bn of costs relating to coronavirus.

Full story in the HSJ, 28 July 2020