Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) was ever formally designated for abolition or merger under the framework to reduce ICBs from 42 to 26; and on what date it was agreed to keep South Yorkshire ICB as a standalone entity; and who made that decision.

In response to NHS England’s announcement on 1 April 2025 reducing integrated care board (ICB) running costs, some smaller ICBs considered clustering arrangements and some proposed legal merger. The South Yorkshire ICB was not formally designated for abolition or merger under this process but did consider options including shared leadership.

NHS England took decisions on changes to ICB boundaries, after consulting ministers, during Summer 2025, and ministers announced the outcome of that process in a Written Ministerial Statement on 9 September 2025. The South Yorkshire ICB was not included in the announced mergers and remained a standalone ICB.