Submission on a National Health Service Transparency Code to the Health & Social Care

Commission of Labour’s National Policy Forum

A National Health Service Transparency Code would answer in part the questions “How can we
ensure that we maintain a universal health care system, free at the point of delivery?”, “What
measures can be put in place to ensure that our NHS and social care systems are equipped with
enough doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff to deal with ever increasing demand?” and “How
do we ensure the NHS and social care receives adequate funding in order to meet rising demand?”
asked in the Health & Social Care Commission’s discussion paper. An NHS Transparency Code
would allow the public to be better informed about how money is spent in the NHS and the value
for money the NHS offers.

I would like to submit the following proposal for an NHS Transparency Code to require NHS
bodies to publish:

1) Financial data such as expenditure exceeding £500, Government Procurement Card transactions,
procurement information etc similar to that specified by the Local Government Transparency Code
for local authorities.

2) The broken-down total costs of employment, non-individually identifiable job titles and
administrative groups of all staff including bank/agency staff and contractors.

3) Detailed non-individually identifiable staff sickness data by department and ward.

4) Procurement contracts and related documents, excluding those parts which are confidential for
commercial reasons.

5) Private Finance Initiative contracts and related documents, excluding those parts which are
confidential for commercial reasons.