This document sets out the NHS Counter Fraud Authority’s business plan for the 2022- 23 financial year. This is the last year covered by our 2020-2023 strategy.
The Chair’s message and CEO’s foreword set out the context and rationale for our approach to delivering our strategic objectives in 2022-23. The document then describes our business model and integrated approach to delivery, followed by an overview of our achievements and learnings from the previous reporting year (2021-22).
At the core of the document is a delivery plan which highlights our areas of focus for 2022-23 under each of our strategic objectives, along with key planned activities and metrics.
Our over-riding performance goal is our financial target of £400 million for the three-year period of our current strategy, a reduction in fraud losses across the NHS measured through a combination of prevention, detection and recovery. We will also assess our impact in terms of a reduction in the NHS’s vulnerability to fraud.
Resilience and engagement levels within the NHS as a whole are under pressure. Fraud and financial awareness generally has struggled for share of attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as a consequence. Achieving the umbrella target will require a step change in performance and stakeholder partnerships from all parts of the NHSCFA to galvanise our partners in the NHS and across the wider counter fraud community.
This plan explains how our focal points are informed by Strategic Intelligence as well as employee and external stakeholder perceptions. It also provides more details about how, despite the impact of the pandemic, we are striving for and intend to continuously evolve to bring about the step change needed in our enabling activities to deliver against our four strategic objectives for 2020-2023 and beyond:
- Lead and influence the NHS to find, prevent, and reduce fraud, recovering losses and putting money back into patient care.
- Work with partners to reduce fraud loss in the NHS.
- Support and empower our people to be the best in their roles and feel valued.
- Effectively use our resources, identify and pursue opportunities for growth and innovation and reduce our operating costs.
More details are also provided on our portfolio of key corporate projects for 2022-23 and beyond and how they will enable achievement of our goals through agile and smarter working as well as leveraging our stakeholder relationships to amplify our voice, impact and reach.
While the bulk of our fraud fighting activities have been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years, we have taken the opportunity to listen, re-measure, analyse and refocus every aspect of our operating model. This includes the systems that drive our performance, planning and measurement processes now under the stewardship of a revitalised Board, new CEO and performance director. We believe we have the right mixture of combined skills to meet the challenge of the final year of this strategy period and are in the process of devising further, future-fit strategies to move us through and past the long tail of COVID-19.