Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the merits of highly specialised services being commissioned directly by individual hospital trusts.

In preparation for the merger of the Department and NHS England and the integration of their functions under one organisation, and alongside the 10 Year Plan's ambitions to establish integrated care boards as strategic commissioners of local health services that are responsible for all but the most specialised commissioning, the NHS England Executive is undertaking a review of all of its commissioning functions to make recommendations on the most appropriate future arrangements. This work is ongoing and includes consideration of highly specialised services and the need to commission these services at the most appropriate scale in the future, in accordance with the Government’s ambitions in this area.