Introduction

This guidance supports integrated care boards (ICBs) and their partner NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts (referred to collectively in this guidance as ‘partner trusts’) to develop their joint capital resource use plans (JCRUPs).

The National Health Service Act 2006, as amended by the Health and Care Act 2022 (the amended 2006 Act), requires ICBs and their partner trusts to prepare their JCRUP before the start of each financial year.

It should be read alongside guidance on NHS priorities and operational planning, notably published Capital guidance, and the Medium Term Planning Framework – delivering change together 2026/27 to 2028/29. While the 10 Year Health Plan outlined plans for legislative changes and reforms, the existing duty on ICBs and their partner trusts to agree and produce JCRUPS remains in effect until new legislation is passed by Parliament and the duty under the current Act is either changed or abolished.

Action required of ICBs and their partner trusts

ICBs and their partner trusts must:

• prepare a plan setting out their planned capital resource use before the start of each financial year (by 1 April)
• publish the plan and give a copy to the integrated care partnership for the relevant ICB’s area, any relevant health and wellbeing boards and NHS England

The relevant sections of the Health and Care Act 2022 are sections 14Z56 and 14Z57.

The boards of the ICB and its partner trusts will approve their JCRUP and will expect to see clear alignment with the Capital Plan and the 5 Year Strategic Commissioning Plan (which incorporates the legal requirements of the joint forward plan (JFP) and the integrated care system’s infrastructure strategies).

ICBs and their partner trusts should agree the process for finalising and signing off the JCRUP. The final version must be published in an easily accessible place on the ICB website, with a copy given to the Integrated Care Partnership for the relevant ICB’s area, any relevant health and wellbeing boards and NHS England. The ICBs and their partner trusts will be held to account for the delivery of the plan.

Purpose of the joint capital resource use plan

Legal responsibility for the timely preparation and publication of the JCRUP lies with the ICB and its partner trusts.

ICBs and their partner trusts have flexibility to determine their JCRUP’s scope as well as how it is developed and structured. However, we encourage the use of the supporting materials in this guidance so that, as a minimum, the JCRUP describes how capital is contributing to the delivery of the 10 Year Health Plan for England, how the plan is consistent with the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework, the ICBs’ priorities, and how it will deliver benefits to patients and other healthcare users.

The published plans aim to provide transparency for local residents, patients, NHS health workers and other NHS stakeholders on the prioritisation and expenditure of capital funding by ICBs and their partner trusts to achieve their strategic aims. This supports both provider and ICB requirements to manage capital plans within allocated capital, and meets ICBs’ responsibilities to report annually on their use of resources.

Relationship with NHS planning

ICBs and their partner trusts will continue to separately submit specific operational and financial information as part of the nationally co-ordinated NHS planning process. We will seek to avoid duplication and ensure alignment between NHS planning submissions and the public-facing JCRUP.

ICBs and their partner trusts should ensure alignment, where possible, between their JCRUPs to the requirements outlined in the Medium Term Planning Framework, Delivering Change Together via the production of finance, workforce and activity plans across the next three financial years.

The Medium Term Planning Framework requires ICBs to publish either their 5 Year Strategic Commissioning plan in its entirety or the elements of the plan which meet the legal requirements of the Joint Forward Plan duty under s.14Z52 NHS Act 2006, if this has been included as an appendix rather than woven into the entire document.

The JCRUPS should be aligned with ICB 5 Year Strategic Commissioning plans and Provider 5 Year Integrated Delivery plans which will set out how organisations will seek to maximise the use of existing assets and capital investment in the most effective way, to deliver objectives on transformation and performance improvement over the medium term. The relevant information should be extracted from these five-year plans to support the production of the JCRUP and meet the requirements set out in this guidance document.

Developing the joint capital resource use plan: Guidance and requirements

Overview

JCRUPs are expected to provide users with information about the delivery of the 10 Year Health Plan for England, consistency with the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework, and how the ICB and its partner trusts are implementing the three shifts:

• Sickness to prevention
• Hospital to community
• Analogue to digital

Supporting materials

NHS England has developed the following materials to help ICBs and their partner trusts to prepare their plans. These are included as appendices to this document and can also be found on the NHS Planning Futures collaboration platform.

Plan checklist (Appendix A)

ICBs and their partner trusts can use this checklist to produce their JCRUP. It sets out the minimum requirements for what should be included in the plan and aims to support local considerations when developing a robust capital plan. ICBs and their partner trusts should develop their plans in accordance with local circumstances.

Capital delegated expenditure limit (CDEL) table (Appendix B)

ICBs and their partner trusts can use this table in their JCRUP to present a high-level summary of the total CDEL impact of their capital plans for the forthcoming financial year.

Whilst the capital regime for 2026/27 replaces system level operational capital allocations with provider level allocations, as set out above the requirement of the Act to produce a JCRUP remains unchanged.

Figures included in JCRUPs that are in the format of Appendix B should be based upon the total ICB spend plus the sum of total provider CDEL for all partner trusts. The figures reported should be consistent with the final ICB (IPR) and provider (FPR) financial plan submissions. The ICB and partner trusts should work together to ensure the individual capital plans reconcile in aggregate and correctly reflected in the published JCRUPs.

JCRUP template (Appendix C)

ICBs and their partner trusts can use this template to present their information. It is a suggested layout and is not a separate document that needs to be prepared or submitted in addition to the final published JCRUP. Please note the template contains the same requirements as the checklist.

Overall, ICBs and their partner trusts can publish their final JCRUP in a format of their choice, providing, as a minimum, that the final published plan meets the requirements set out in this document.

Publication

Once finalised, systems must publish their JCRUP and share it with:

• the integrated care partnership for the relevant ICB’s area
• relevant health and wellbeing boards
• NHS England 

A copy of the published plan or link to the website must be shared with NHS England at england.capitalcashqueries@nhs.net.

Submission

No formal submission will be required in 2026/27.

ICBs must share a copy of the final plan with NHS England once it is published, but this does not constitute a formal submission. Plans should be sent to england.capitalcashqueries@nhs.net.

We request that published capital plans are shared within 6 weeks of final financial plans being submitted to NHS England.

Revision of joint capital resource use plans

The 2022 Act is specific in its requirements relating to plan revisions:

• An integrated care board and its partner NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts may revise a previously published JCRUP.
• If the ICB and its partner trusts consider revisions to be significant, revised plans should be published and shared again with the integrated care partnership for the relevant ICB’s area, relevant Health and Wellbeing Boards and NHS England as set out above.
• If the ICB and its partner trusts revise the plan in any other way, they must publish a document setting out the changes and give a copy of the revised plan to the integrated care partnership for the relevant ICB’s area, relevant Health and Wellbeing Boards and NHS England.

Annual report

ICBs are required to produce an annual report detailing how they discharged their functions in the previous financial year.

The annual report must review and comment on the extent to which the ICB board has exercised its functions in respect of the published plans – that is, ensure a capital resource use plan has been prepared by the start of the financial year, ensure that it is published and shared with the relevant bodies specified in the Act.

Questions

Any queries on these materials should be sent to england.capitalcashqueries@nhs.net.

Publication reference: PRN01754