Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS agencies have changed their name or merged in the last (a) 12 and (b) 24 months; and what the cost was to the public purse of such mergers and name changes.

No National Health Service arm’s length bodies have merged or changed their name in the last 24 months. As of 1 April 2016, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA) have been working under a shared leadership and operating framework as NHS Improvement. However, Monitor and the TDA have not formally merged. They continue to operate in line with their current legal underpinnings as two separate entities. In order to ensure that all NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts have access to the same kinds of support and interventions there will be much more alignment between the two organisations so that they can deliver what patients and taxpayers have a right to expect. As at the end of March, the cost associated with the recruitment of NHS Improvement’s Chief Executive and designing and supporting NHS Improvement’s new structure and operating model has been £655,190. There may have been other costs associated with the alignment of the two organisations but these have been absorbed in their baseline funding allocations.