Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his Answer of 27 November to Question 215754, what main concerns have been raised by stakeholders in renal services at the recent meeting with the head of the Specialised Services Task Force in NHS England; and what steps he is taking in response to such concerns.

Concerns raised by stakeholders in the meeting hosted by the head of the Specialised Services Task Force in NHS England included: the status of service specifications and clinical policies, mandatory hospital data collection requirements, clinical commissioning group (CCG) understanding of renal dialysis and a potential fragmentation of the renal transplant pathway.

NHS England has recently established a Task & Finish group through the NHS Commissioning Assembly. This group comprises representatives from CCGs and NHS England, and will oversee the development and delivery of proposals for commissioning of specialised services in 2015-16 and beyond.

Within this Task & Finish group, a sub-group will be responsible for planning and managing the transition process for services that are being transferred from national to CCG commissioning (including renal dialysis) from 1 April 2015.

On 27 November 2014, the Department issued a public consultation on the arrangements for the transfer of commissioning responsibility from NHS England to CCGs for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services.

The consultation seeks views on what type of support CCGs will need from NHS England to be able to commission renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services effectively and whether, if all this support can be put in place, the timing of the transfer is right.

The results of the consultation will be used to inform the decisions on when and how to transfer the commissioning responsibility for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services to CCGs, and the work of the NHS England Task & Finish group. The consultation will close on 9 January 2015.

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