Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) do not inherit budget deficits when taking responsibility for commissioning or co-commissioning specialised services and (b) existing healh services commissioned by clinical commissioning groups are not adversely affected by the additional specialised services responsibilities of CCGs.

NHS England is responsible for the commissioning of specialised services. It is for Ministers to decide, with independent advice, the conditions that should be on the specialised commissioning list.

During 2015-16 there will be monitoring of all specialised commissioning expenditure against nominal clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) budgets. This information will enable both NHS England commissioners and CCG commissioners to better understand the financial position and any pressures on all specialised services. NHS England will also be engaging with CCGs through co-commissioning to carry out work to redesign pathways and invest in upstream interventions. In this context there will be no additional funding for CCG running costs for 2015-16 but this may be revisited in 2016-17.

For services that have been recommended for transfer, a new Task and Finish group is being established by NHS England through the NHS Commissioning Assembly. This group will look specifically at what support CCGs would require to be able to safely and effectively commission services devolved to them.

NHS England is committed to issuing commissioning guidance for the safe transfer of services from national NHS England responsibility to local CCG responsibility.