I am revising the 2025-26 financial directions to NHS England made on 31 March 2025, and setting the 2026-27 financial directions to NHS England.
The amendment to the total revenue resource use limit for 2025-26 has been agreed with NHS England, as required under section 223D(4) of the National Health Service Act 2006.
The directions reflect recent funding settlements with His Majesty’s Treasury and include a number of funding transfers from and between the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
The 2025-26 total is as set out by HM Treasury at the autumn statement, with some additional transfers in-year, including for pay, industrial action and redundancy costs. The 2026-27 total is as set out by HM Treasury, with some additions from budgets held in the wider DHSC group.
Both directions will be laid before Parliament and published on gov.uk.
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Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration: Pay Recommendation
I hugely appreciate the incredible work of talented staff across our NHS. That is why I am formally accepting the headline pay recommendation from the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration to give them a well-deserved pay rise. This means:
Over 165,000 doctors working in hospital and community health sector will receive a 3.5% pay rise.
For GPs and other general practice staff there will be a 3.5% increase to the pay elements of the GP contract.
Increased funding for the additional roles reimbursement scheme will also be provided to facilitate uplifts for staff in line with DDRB and NHSPRB recommendations.
For dentists there will be a 3.75% increase to the pay elements of the NHS dental contract.
Community dental service dentists, who are salaried, will also receive a 3.75% pay rise.
We are working closely with payroll systems to ensure pay uplifts will be implemented as soon as possible.
These awards are above forecast inflation over the 2026-27 pay year, meaning that the Government are delivering a real-terms pay rise, on top of those in preceding years, underlining the extent to which we value our doctors and dentists. We are in the process of concluding business planning across DHSC and its arm’s length bodies and that will take the DDRB recommendations into account. The existing challenging, productivity and efficiency commitments required by ICBs and providers to deliver break-even positions are the foundations of the Government’s ability to agree this within the existing settlement. This additional pressure above the Government’s affordability position set out in its evidence to the DDRB will be managed by DHSC and ALBs (including NHS England central budgets) so the DDRB increases will not be paid for by cutting frontline services.
I am today announcing the publication of the new pandemic preparedness strategy, outlining the UK Government plan for improving our pandemic preparedness capabilities between now and 2030.
The covid-19 pandemic was the most significant crisis that we have faced in generations. It touched every aspect of our lives, and its impacts continue to be felt across our communities. It showed that a future pandemic is one of the most profound threats to our society.
The UK is already a world leader in life sciences. Building on our strengths and the huge amount of work that has taken place since the pandemic to improve preparedness, the 2025 UK Government resilience action plan set out a new national approach to resilience, based on continuous assessment of readiness and mobilising the whole of society.
This strategy, which is backed by investment of around £1 billion for health protection during the current spending review period, is a demonstration of our resolve to protect the health of our nation, safeguard our economy and minimise the unequal impacts that pandemics can bring. It sets out the improvements that we will make to our health system response capabilities, and how they underpin a whole-of-Government and whole-of-society approach. It builds on the lessons identified from the covid-19 pandemic and is shaped by the findings of the UK covid-19 inquiry and indicative findings from Exercise Pegasus, the largest non-military exercise ever to take place in the UK. The exercise tested the Government’s ability to respond quickly and effectively during a prolonged crisis, with a full report to be published in the winter of 2026.
Health and Social Care · Order Paper · Order Paper
I am grateful to the chair and members of the DDRB for their thoughtful consideration of the evidence presented to them; their report recognises the vital contribution that NHS staff make to our country. DDRB have examined the economic picture, and evidence on recruitment, retention, motivation and morale to reach their recommendations.
The DDRB made a further two recommendations, which are not directly related to headline pay, targeted at specific parts of the remit group. I am grateful for these recommendations. However, we need further time to carefully consider these, working with our partners to determine the best way forward. To avoid delays to pay uplifts reaching NHS staff, we will respond separately to these recommendations in due course.
We will continue to implement commitments to improve the support NHS staff receive and their experience at work. Ensuring the NHS is a great place to work is fundamental to improving the patient experience: from reducing the backlog in elective care, to ensuring timely access to GP appointments.
Next Steps
We have listened to the workforce and understand the difficulties they face when pay awards are not delivered on time. Last year, this Government committed to speeding up the pay review process, remitting the pay review bodies months earlier than in previous years, and also submitting written evidence earlier. I am pleased to be announcing the pay awards earlier than the previous year, which means that doctors and dentists will see pay in their pay packets closer to April. We will continue work across Government to keep bringing forward the pay round for all public sector staff.
The DDRB report will be presented to Parliament and published on gov.uk. I will update the House at the earliest opportunity on ongoing negotiations with the BMA Resident Doctors Committee.
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The covid-19 pandemic demonstrated the crucial importance of Governments across the UK working together while also respecting, and taking full account of, devolved areas of responsibility.
In support of a joined-up approach to preparedness, all four nations endorse the principles of preparedness set out in the strategy, while individual nations will have their own plans to implement their preparedness.
These principles include protecting those most at risk, with Governments committing to tailoring their capabilities to protect all communities and aiming to deliver an effective and equitable response to pandemics.
The strategy contains commitments across a number of areas that outline how the UK Government will improve pandemic preparedness, many of which have been informed and shaped by the initial findings of Exercise Pegasus. They include to:
Take a dynamic approach to ensure access to vaccines and therapeutics, and address the perceived barriers to the development of novel vaccines and therapeutics for priority pathogens.
Develop the ability to rapidly develop diagnostics for a broad range of pathogens, with scaled up in-house capacity for laboratory testing and whole genome sequencing.
Develop UK manufacturing capacity for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
Further strengthen surveillance systems to be comprehensive, activation-ready and drawing on diverse sample groups across settings and communities, so that we can detect threats, understand disease spread and enable the analytical capability to act effectively and equitably.
Replenish PPE stockpiles, refine plans for mobilising and distributing PPE, and prepare a cross-Government model for procuring and prioritising the distribution of PPE to critical workers in a pandemic.
Strengthen Government co-ordination mechanisms, drawing from early findings of Exercise Pegasus, including through regularly reviewing and exercising response plans. Guidance will be put in place for local responders.
Publish evidence reviews on the effectiveness of community protection measures and build a suite of measures to support decision making and prioritisation.
Expand communication channels for and improve our understanding of how to make communications relevant to different communities, and strengthen guidance provided to different sectors.
Review the data capabilities needed to support decision-making and evaluate the impacts of pandemic response measures, and enhance data sharing capabilities to enable faster and more transparent information sharing between organisations and with the public in a pandemic.
Co-develop an adult social care pandemic action plan to respond to future threats with sector partners. As part of this, we will focus on how best to support the wellbeing of those with care and support needs and how to improve the resilience and preparedness of the adult social care workforce.
Strengthen the flexibility and resilience of the healthcare workforce, improve the NHS baseline capabilities to manage infections, and develop plans to minimise the risk of cross-contamination across services and maintain continuity of routine care during pandemics.
By integrating our health, security and scientific capabilities, we will protect the NHS, safeguard our economy and save lives.