Hospitals have an “urgent need” to be given certainty over future Covid costs, the head of the NHS in England has said.

Sir Simon Stevens told MPs on the Health and Social Care Select Committee he has an “expectation” that the NHS will be given more money to cope with the bill for caring for people with Covid-19.

Meanwhile, he said cancer care is a “top priority” for the NHS.

Money for the 2021/22 financial year will come from the NHS long-term funding settlement, with additional funding allocated in the November Spending Review to catch up on the backlog of care that has arisen as a result of Covid.

The chief executive of NHS England said the health service has also been provided with the extra costs of looking after Covid-19 patients.

But he added: “Given that the majority of Covid hospitalised patients that we’ve been looking after have actually been admitted since that November Spending Review – we’ve obviously had an incredibly tough December, January, February across the health service – there are going to be continuing Covid-related needs and costs spilling into the new financial year.

“The expectation is that the NHS will receive additional funding to cover those unavoidable Covid costs, certainly into the first half of the (financial) year.”

Asked by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt whether it is “surprising” that the funds were not allocated during last week’s Budget, Sir Simon said: “There’s an urgent need now to give that funding certainty to hospitals, to local frontline services, and the beginning of the financial year is hoving into view.

“We do expect that that would be resolved very shortly.”

Meanwhile, Sir Simon said the cancer programme will be one of the health service’s top priorities.

“When people are referred then it’s important they quickly get their diagnostics and so we are expanding access to diagnostic services,” he said.

He added that £325 million has been allocated to enable the NHS to deal with more CT and MRI scanning and other diagnostic tools.

The NHS has also seen protected cancer surgery hubs and chemotherapy return to usual levels, he said.

Sir Simon added: “Clearly there’s going to be a lot more to do in the cancer programme during the course of the coming year and that is going to be one of the top operational priorities of the health service.”

Meanwhile, he praised the work of volunteers who have helped roll out the mass vaccination programme.

He also revealed that a vaccination hub has opened at Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner in London.