CCGs will have effectively lost £5.72 worth of services per person by 2019/20 because of inflation, equating to a £330m loss nationally.
The prediction, from NHS Clinical Commissioners, comes as NHS England has committed to increasing CCG budgets by an average of 2% each year until 2019/20.
But the analysis shows that when inflation is applied the increase falls to 0.6% per year, and falls again to 0.48% if population growth is accounted for.
As a result NHSCC has called for ring-fenced funding to help CCGs develop services needed to meet changing population needs.
Andrew Pepper, chair of the NHSCC Finance Forum, said CCGs already face increasing demand from an aging population under tight budget constraints.
He said that although CCGs are ‘willing to meet these challenges and transform healthcare for the better’, this ‘will not be enough to alleviate all the pressures on the NHS’.
He said: ‘To stop the difficult decisions clinical commissioners are making sliding into impossible choices, we need realism about what the NHS can deliver, support for local decision-making and ring-fenced funding for transformation.’
This comes as a report from the Health Foundation found that despite promises from the Government to increase NHS funding by £8bn over five years, the health service will still face a £12bn deficit in 2020/21.
