Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to introduce Accountable Care Organisations within the NHS; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England recently published a draft Accountable Care Organisations (ACO) contract. This contract is a variant of the NHS Standard Contract and is designed to assist local commissioners to commission an integrated package of primary medical services and other health (and possibly social care) services for a defined population from a single lead provider referred to as an ACO. An ACO is “introduced” only by the award of such a contract.

It will always be for local commissioners to determine how to best deliver services to meet local needs. It is right that decisions on configuration are made by the local National Health Service, who can best assess how to meet the needs of people in their area. For any significant system reconfiguration, we expect all local parts of the system to be talking to the public and stakeholders regularly — it is vital that people can shape the future of their local services.