Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the legal status of NHS Improvement is; how and to whom that body is accountable; and what functions he has in relation to that body.

NHS Improvement has brought together two distinct legal entities: Monitor, a non-departmental public body and the NHS Trust Development Authority, a special health authority, under a single leadership and operating model. It is a combination of the continuing statutory functions and legal powers vested in these organisations.

They will continue to maintain their current legal underpinnings as two separate bodies, although they will function as a single organisation to manage NHS trusts and foundation trusts more effectively in the interests of patients and taxpayers.

NHS Improvement will be accountable directly to Parliament, the Secretary of State and the Department’s Principal Accounting Officer for discharge of Monitor’s statutory and regulatory functions and to the Secretary of State and Principal Accounting Officer for the specific functions of the Trust Development Authority.