Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2016 to Question 40847, what criteria NHS England uses to determine whether a clinical commissioning group is failing or has failed to discharge any of its functions.

For 2015/16, NHS England has assessed clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) against whether they are well led organisations, and considered their financial performance, their delivery of commitments and improved health outcomes for their populations, the quality of their short and long term planning and performance against delegated functions. NHS England introduced special measures for CCGs in 2015/16 where there are serious concerns, and is supported by legislation in exercising formal powers of direction if it is satisfied that a CCG is failing, or is at risk of failing to discharge its functions. A CCG will be rated as “inadequate” overall if more than one of the above criteria is rated “inadequate”, or if it is already under legal directions. Inadequate CCGs will be given directions if they have not already been issued. From 2016/17, CCGs will be assessed against the CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework, published on the NHS England website, which will use the criteria of better health, better care, sustainability and leadership alongside independent assessments of six clinical priority areas: mental health, dementia, learning disability, diabetes, cancer and maternity.