Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 26 March 2013 to Question 149577, where the minutes of his regular formal accountability meetings with the Chair of the Board are published; and how he holds the Board to account to meet its duties to promote (a) the commercialisation of intellectual property and (b) other forms of innovation.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 imposes a legal duty on the National Health Service Commissioning Board, known as NHS England, to promote innovation. No such duty exists to promote the commercialisation of intellectual property.

The Secretary of State holds NHS England to account for delivery of its mandate objectives and legal duties through bi-monthly accountability meetings. These feed into an annual assessment of NHS England, which is laid before Parliament. The “Annual Assessment of the NHS Commissioning Board (known as NHS England) 2013-14” was laid in Parliament on 22 July 2014 and included an assessment of NHS England’s performance on innovation.

The minutes of the regular formal accountability meetings between the Secretary of State and the Chair of the NHS Commissioning Board (the legal name for NHS England) are published online on the Government website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-commissioning-board-accountability-meeting-minutes

Ministers and officials also regularly meet with NHS England to discuss a range of subjects.