CSP welcomes proposals to reform NHS commissioning in England  

The CSP has welcomed proposals for legal reforms to limit the scope of the market in commissioning NHS services in England.

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NHS England and NHS Improvement are today publishing their response to the consultation on legislative change proposals.

The CSP has previously welcomed proposals to:

  • Abolish requirements to tender for services (Section 75). This will allow greater focus on health outcomes, rather than resource inputs, and will also enable local services to collaborate to develop long-term plans to meet community needs.
  • End the Competition and Markets Authority role. Applying commercial competition rules in the NHS has prevented sensible collaboration between NHS services.
  • Enable the secretary of state to create new NHS trusts. This is needed to enable new integrated care trusts to be developed. The boards of all new trusts should include AHPs.
  • Allow greater collaboration among arms-length bodies.

The CSP has supported calls for the legislation to go further to include a requirement for all NHS bodies to collectively develop the workforce required to deliver quality patient care.

Whilst welcoming the proposals the CSP has, however, warned against them being used to introduce top-down reorganisation. 

Wholesale reorganisation of services would disrupt services and undermine staff morale. Local changes need to be meaningfully consulted on with communities, patients and staff.

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