Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many proposals to form new NHS wholly owned subsidiary companies have been received under the Addendum to the transactions guidance for trusts forming or changing a subsidiary dated November 2018.

Ministers do not have a role in approving Wholly Owned Subsidiary companies created by NHS foundation trusts, with this role delegated by powers to NHS England and NHS Improvement.

At the end of August 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement had been notified of 16 business cases as part of their Wholly Owned Subsidiary review process. A number of these are still ‘live’ cases where information is still being received as part of the review. All cases have been reviewed to consider their relative risks, according to the requirements of the Addendum to the transactions guidance.

When NHS England and NHS Improvement published their guidance for trusts forming or changing a subsidiary, in November 2018, it committed to a review of the proposals for implementing a subsidiary a year later. Work is ongoing to collect information on the impact of the proposals; it is expected that the outcome of this work this will be published early in 2020.