Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government on what basis they decided to lift the legal directions on the Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group and the Horsham and Mid Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group.

Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will merge with the Horsham and Mid Sussex CCG to form a new West Sussex CCG from 1 April 2020. The directions needed to be reviewed before the merger date and reapplied to the new entity if necessary, or they would lapse as the existing CCG legal entities would cease.

Following a review, NHS England concluded that the CCGs had addressed the directions as written. However, there remained a significant financial challenge.

The new leadership in the CCGs, together with the other partners, have created a recovery board to develop and deliver a financial recovery strategy and plan for these CCGs and their successor. As a result, NHS England has decided that legal directions can be removed.