Nesbitt details funding to mitigate National Insurance bills
Date published:
The increase in National Insurance contributions for employers has added in the region of £140m to the Department of Health’s financial pressures this year.
That total includes some £100m in relation to directly employed staff in Trusts and other statutory organisations in the Health and Social Care system.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has also agreed that funding be made available to help support non-statutory providers of health and social care in meeting their additional National Insurance bills.
This package involves a projected £40m and includes social care providers and hospices as well as family health service providers (GPs, dentists, community pharmacies and opticians).
£3.5m has been earmarked for GPs for National Insurance and detailed in the 2025/26 GP contract discussions. However, the BMA has asked its GP members to reject the GP contract on offer.
Of the other family health service providers, £4m has been earmarked for community pharmacies, £2.5m for General Dental Services and £1m for General Ophthalmic Services.
The Health Minister commented: “My three year plan for health and social care includes stabilisation of services amid the current severe financial pressures. Providing assistance with rising National Insurance bills very much fits in with the stabilisation objective.
“It is crucially important to support providers who have been hit with additional costs for reasons entirely outside their control.
“I have therefore decided to take a financial hit rather than leave health care providers to deal with the UK Government’s hike in National Insurance contributions by themselves. That would have been deeply unfair and would have been detrimental to health and social care provision.”
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