Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, to what extent clinical commissioning groups must comply with (a) the specialised service specifications and (b) the clinical commissioning policies produced by NHS England's clinical reference groups.

NHS England has a number of direct commissioning responsibilities, including for a range of prescribed specialised services for which clinical commissioning policies and service specifications are developed and published.

The majority of other NHS services fall within the commissioning responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and for these services it is for CCGs to determine commissioning policies and service requirements on a local basis.

It is important that the respective commissioning approaches fit together in a way that provides clinically and cost effective and cohesive care for patients and for that reason NHS England is supporting a range of collaborative commissioning approaches between its specialised commissioning teams, clinical advisors and CCGs.

National service specifications and clinical commissioning policies will still apply for those specialised services that will be collaboratively commissioned with CCGs.