‘NHS Financial Year 2010/11: A summary of auditors' work’, provides a view of the overall financial performance of the NHS in 2010/11. The report summarises the audit of the 2010/11 accounts for strategic health authorities (SHAs), NHS trusts and PCTs, and looks at auditors' conclusion on the value for money (VFM) arrangements in place in each organisation. It also reviews the progress made by PCTs and NHS trusts in delivering their cost improvement programmes (CIPs).
In response to the changing financial environment, the Audit Commission introduced a new approach to VFM work. The new, more focused and less costly approach reduces the work auditors need to do to meet their statutory VFM responsibilities. The lighter touch approach recognises the progress made by the NHS under the Auditors' Local Evaluation (ALE) and Use of Resources (UoR) assessments.
For 2010/11 the auditors focussed their review on whether:
- the organisation has proper arrangements in place for securing financial resilience; and
- the organisation has proper arrangements for challenging how it secures economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
In the report we find that the overall financial performance of most health bodies was good. We also found that:
- NHS organisations delivered a surplus of £1.5 billion;
- of 276 organisations, all except nine balanced their books;
- some NHS organisations required financial assistance to balance their books;
- almost a quarter of NHS trusts (27) and 12 per cent of PCTs (18) received qualified VFM conclusions; and
- all PCTs, NHS trusts and SHAs submitted their draft accounts to the Department Health and auditors on time, and there were no qualified true and fair opinions.