Website of the Department of Health

The standard NHS contract for acute hospital services and supporting guidance

These documents represent Annex E to the NHS operating framework for 2008-09 and should be read in conjunction with Annex D: Principles and Rules of Co-operation and Competition.

The NHS contract for acute hospital services will cover agreements between PCTs and providers for the delivery of acute hospital based care.  The contract will apply to agreements from 2008-09 for:

• NHS trusts
• New Foundation trusts and FTs whose existing contracts have expired
• New agreements between PCTs and independent sector providers (although not until later in 2008)

Included with the contract template are:

• Guidance on the contract
• A standard activity plan template
• A model consortium agreement for PCTs
• Guidance on the consortium agreement
• An impact assessment
• Guidance on the use of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures

These documents have been revised following consultation with stakeholders and the NHS. 

The contract guidance is in three parts:

• Aims and principles and policy requirements
• Practical guidance on completing the contract template and reaching contract agreement
• Technical and legal requirements

Commissioners and providers should now use these finalised documents rather than previous versions. A helpdesk for PCT and SHA staff is available from 2nd January 2008 to 30th April 2008, to support the implementation of the new contract.

• Download Standard NHS contract for acute services - revised 8 January 2008 (DOC, 1065K)
• Download Guidance on the Standard NHS Contract (PDF, 1063K)
• Download Contract activity plan profile 2008-09 (XLS, 519K)
• Download Guidance on the routine collection of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) (PDF, 37K)
• Download Consortium agreement (RTF, 56K)
• Download Consortium agreement legal guidance (PDF, 81K)