Financial Governance and the NHS

Abstract

Faced with significant difficulties to meet financial costs owing to increased demand for healthcare, National Health Service (NHS) organisations are looking to maintain tight financial control and reduce expenditure where possible. Significant price hikes in essential medicines can also raise challenges to the supply of necessary drugs for the population. The NHS continues to supply healthcare free at the point of use and any attempts to introduce charges remain unpopular. There have been a number of ways in which providers endeavour to reduce costs: rationalisation (reduction of services or certain costly drugs) or through increasing the role of private providers in healthcare provision. This chapter thus reviews the funding challenges the NHS is currently facing and how financial governance is evolving to meet those challenges.