Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve financial control in the NHS.

Mr Philip Dunne, Minister of State for Health: here are clear plans in place for responding to the challenges faced by the National Health Service and to improve financial control, these include:

- Introducing a £1.8 billion Sustainability and Transformation Fund this year to support providers to move to a financially sustainable footing;

- Restoring financial discipline in the short term, beginning with the NHS England and NHS Improvement publication of ‘Strengthening Financial Performance & Accountability in 2016-17’, which sets out a wide-ranging, seven-point set of actions;

- Reducing demand for acute care in the longer term as set out in the Five Year Forward View; and

- Promoting efficiency and productivity in the provider sector - building on the work of Lord Carter, which has identified large variations in efficiency across non-specialist English acute hospitals, and controlling cost pressures.

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