Health Services

(asked on 14th July 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment was made of the impact of closing the Health Gateway Hub on the use of project and programme assurance, and any consequential impact on good practice and governance.


This question was answered on 24th July 2015

Until, February 2015 the Department funded, free of charge to the receiving organisation, such reviews throughout the health system. This cost the Department in the region of £1 million in the last financial year. In light of the ongoing financial constraints and the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, in February this year the Department’s Senior Leadership Team took the decision to cease providing such reviews free of charge. There has been no cost to the Department in closing the Health Gateway Hub.

In ceasing the funding for the provision of Gateways across the health system, the Department undertook a consultation exercise with those organisations that had made most use of the service to understand whether they would still use the service on a self-paid for basis; whether they would be willing to co-ordinate such reviews themselves; or whether there was a need for a centralised co-ordination function for such reviews in the future. Responses to this consultation have been mixed with some organisations offering to provide their own co-ordination and others interested in pursuing a jointly co-ordinated model.

Gateway reviews continue to be used within the Department and it is also in consultation with its arms length bodies to understand the demand for a shared co-ordination function between those bodies. NHS England is currently considering the arrangements it may need to put in place to support business needs.

In the short term, the Department continues to provide a list of accredited reviewers to organisations that wish to undertake Gateway reviews in the future. However, it is for the individual organisations to co-ordinate and fund such reviews themselves.

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