As the 2022 calendar year comes to a close, all eyes will be on our new government and the stance they take to support, or revise, key agenda items in the health and social care space across England. In an inflationary environment, they will no doubt feel pressure to ease the burden without making longer-term commitments. Historically, governments have been reluctant to raise tariffs and reimbursement rates for perceivably transient inflationary pressures, unless they become embedded, and in the short term may resort to one-off cash injections to bail out struggling providers rather than commit to long-term reimbursement/tariff uplift. We anticipate providers, payers and investors alike will be monitoring the situation closely across the coming months as continued CPI and wage inflation may force the issue to be addressed in 2023.

Our annual Whitehall Report acts as an important reference document to decode the complexity of health and care in England. We hope our insights into key and ongoing developments affecting the regulatory, funding, and policy levers impacting the health and social care markets in England help support decision-making for investors in the sector. We hope you enjoy our Whitehall Report and look forward to further discussing the topics that we have covered.