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NHS England’s elective recovery plan, published in early 2022, set out a three-year blueprint to treat the 7.2 million-strong backlog.

In the first of a series of staging posts to getting back on track, integrated care systems were asked to deliver 4 per cent more elective activity this year than before the pandemic, though this was quickly revealed to be unrealistic amid ongoing pressure from covid and emergency care.

As previewed by HSJ in October, NHSE is dropping the blanket diktat and instead handing systems tailored targets for next year based on their performance this year.

The targets range from 103 per cent – for the areas that struggled the most this year – to 114 per cent for those that have taken the biggest chunks out of the backlog.

Perhaps most importantly the new guidance suggests the health service is falling behind on its elective recovery, with around a quarter of systems still yet to achieve this year’s target.

That makes getting to the headline goal of treating 30 per cent more patients by 2025 – a target that NHSE is sticking to, at least officially – increasingly unlikely.

Ticked off over payoffs

NHS England has been criticised by national auditors over a spate of unauthorised payoffs to departing commissioning staff, and warned that the move to integrated care boards may bring more.

The auditor general, Gareth Davies, said it showed the regulations for exits awards were “still not sufficiently well understood” across the NHS. 

Mr Davies identified six “irregular” special severance payments, made without the required NHS England and Treasury authorisation, during 2021-22, which were disclosed in NHSE accounts published on Monday.

He also identified three unauthorised payoffs in 2020-21, prompting him to say that he was concerned this suggested a trend. These earlier payments included £81,000 to a former senior employee by the three clinical commissioning groups which merged into Suffolk and North East Essex ICB, which were not submitted to NHSE and the Treasury for approval.

Meanwhile Kernow CCG recorded three severance payments adding up to more than £94,000, which were found to be “irregular”.

Also on hsj.co.uk today

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