§ Dr. HendronTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what degree of flexibility there is for a hospital if, during the financial year, that hospital has overspent its budget.
§ Mr. HanleyUnder the rules of Government accounting, HPSS boards must contain expenditure within the allocation made to them for any year, and a board has the primary responsibility to ensure that units of management within the board also live within their budgets.
Boards, individual units and hospitals within units have freedom to take management decisions to curtail expenditure in order to achieve this.
A certain amount of flexibility is available to a unit of management in that, with the approval of its board, it may transfer funds from capital to revenue to cover a temporary overspend. In addition a board can make use of underspendings in other budget heads to cover overspendings within a unit of management.
§ Dr. HendronTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to what extent the budget available for any hospital in any coming year is based on the number of deaths and discharges from the previous year.
§ Mr. HanleyThe budget available for a hospital in any year will be based on its anticipated income which will be earned from contracts to provide health and personal social services. These contracts will be made with boards, and GP fundholders and will be related to agreed activity levels measuring in-patient, day-patient and out-patient activity. Previous years activity levels do form a baseline for contract negotiations.