Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 25 November 2014 to Question 215404, which organisations and individuals were consulted by NHS England when it was developing its proposal to move commissioning of dialysis to clinical commissioning groups; and what the contents were of the submissions received in response to that consultation.

NHS England put its proposals for transferring commissioning responsibility for renal dialysis services and morbid obesity surgery services from NHS England to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to the Prescribed Specialised Services Advisory Group in September 2014. These proposals were developed in partnership with the NHS Commissioning Assembly Task and Finish Group on Specialised Service commissioning. The Task and Finish Group is made of clinical commissioners from around the country.

The Task and Finish group was asked by NHS England to advise on development of proposals for enhancing specialised service commissioning in 2015-16, specifically proposals that would enable improved pathway integrity. NHS England presented the proposed direction of travel for specialised commissioning in 2015-16 to the chairs of Clinical Reference Groups earlier in the year.

NHS England has advised that they are in dialogue with key stakeholders about both the opportunities and challenges of transferring commissioning responsibility for renal services from NHS England to CCGs.