Feature / Technical round-up

Monitor has formally notified foundation trusts of the removal of the private patient cap from?1 October. In a letter, it said foundations were now obliged to ensure the total income derived from their principal purpose of delivering ‘goods and services for the purposes of the health service in England’ must be greater than any other income, including that from private patients.

The new integrated single financial environment (ISFE) for commissioners and commissioning support units (CSUs) went live at the beginning of October. The ISFE, provided by NHS Shared Business Services, will give clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and CSUs a common finance and accounting system and its use will be one of the requirements for CCG authorisation. The NHS Commissioning Board, which signed the contract with SBS in April, said the implementation programme for CCGs and CSUs began in October.

Overseas visitors will no longer be expected to pay for HIV treatment following a revision of the Department of Health guidance on charging overseas visitors for hospital treatment. The Department reminded NHS providers that patients with HIV may present with other healthcare needs that may be chargeable unless they too are exempt.

Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs) will not be authorised unless they provide assurance that they are properly established, with robust governance, financial management and engagement processes in place, the Department of Health said. It added that the bodies must provide assurance they will not increase Health Education England (HEE) exposure to financial risk during the transition. All providers of NHS- funded services must be members of LETBs, which will work with HEE to deliver its functions, including commissioning education and training.

The Department of Health has posted the Q2 issues log for financial monitoring and accounts forms in its online finance manual. This applies to strategic health authorities, primary care trusts and NHS trusts.

A series of short notes on allowable validation failures in financial returns forms for strategic health authorities, primary care trusts and NHS trusts have also been published in the online NHS finance manual.

Commissioning Data Sets (CDS) version 6.2 is due to be implemented in Secondary Uses Service (SUS) release 12, the NHS Information Centre said. The SUS release is expected this month and all healthcare providers will be able to submit CDS in the new format once the release is available. However, the October issue of IC Knowledge said all providers must submit CDS 6.2 data by April 2014.

The Department of Health has issued HR guidance on the transition to the new health and care system for senior managers. A letter said any arrangements made with individuals should take account of the Department’s overarching objective to minimise redundancies and maximise the retention of skills. Discussions on transitional arrangements, which will mostly affect strategic health authority directors and primary care trust cluster chief executives, were currently taking place with unions at a national level.