§ Baroness Noakesasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they intend to delegate functions to primary care trusts under the terms of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Bill, once it is enacted, at a date other than the beginning of a financial year; if so, how they will make allocations at that time to primary care trusts to enable them to carry out those delegated functions; and how they will provide for the sharing of the financial responsibility for that financial year between primary care trusts and health authorities (or strategic health authorities). [HL3568]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathPrimary care trusts (PCTs) currently provide or secure the provision of a limited range of services (including primary, community care and secondary care services). Subject to the successful passage of the Bill, more functions will be delegated from health authorities to PCTs from 1 October 2002.
We currently allocate funding to health authorities, and they in turn allocate funding to PCTs on the basis of the relative needs of their populations. A weighted capitation formula is used to determine each health authority and PCTs' fair share of available resources to enable them to commission similar levels of services for populations in equal need.
We announced allocations to health authorities for 2002–03 on 6 December 2001. Health authorities are setting initial PCT allocations for 2002–03 for those 129WA functions for which PCTs will be responsible from 1 April 2002. PCT allocations will be reset to cover the functions that will be delegated to PCTs from 1 October 2002.
In future the intention is that allocations will be made direct to PCTs. Allocations will continue to be based on the principle of weighted capitation.