NHS integrated care board (ICB) funding in England

Most funding for NHS services in England is distributed via Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), who use the funding to provide the majority of local health services in England, including for hospitals and GPs.

ICBs are provided with annual resource allocations to cover the costs of providing health services for the population they cover. For the current fiscal year (2024/25) NHS England has distributed a total of £127.2 billion.

The 2024/25 core services allocations for England were equivalent to around £1,732 per registered patient, a 5.0% real terms increase from the previous year.

Total 2024/25 ICB allocations for primary medical care in England were £11.2 billion, a 4.5% real terms increase compared with 2023/24.

Primary medical care allocations were around £180 per patient across England, a 4.3% real terms annual increase.

The starting point for determining the target allocation is the latest population estimate for the ICB area. However, health needs and costs do vary, and the population estimates are ‘weighted’ to reflect this.

The effect of the weighting means that, in general, ICBs with a larger proportion of the population in older age groups, those in urban areas or those in more deprived areas will have higher target allocations than they would under a simple population-based formula.

The highest ICB core services allocation per patient in 2024/25 was for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside (£1,986), and the lowest was NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire (£1,480).