Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 19 September 2016 to Question 46209, what the relationship will be between the clinical expert groups and the recently established cross-Clinical Reference Group working parties.

As part of the revised arrangements for the Clinical Reference Groups (CRGs), which support specialised commissioning, NHS England has also announced the establishment of cross-CRG working parties, including some which will work with other health and care bodies to contribute to improving services, data and efficiency. These are not distinct CRGs, but a collaboration between existing groups.

Those working parties are:

- Research – building an interface with the National Institute for Health Research to advise how future research strategies align with commissioning and maximising opportunities;

- Data and Resource – working with NHS Digital and NHS Improvement to provide clinical advice to these organisations in their work to improve the information that guides commissioning;

- Guidance – working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as a stakeholder in their guidance development and providing clinical advice as needed; and

- Value – to better understand, and therefore reduce, variations in services and, where appropriate, cease treatments/ways of working that are no longer of clinical or patient benefit.

These relate to the specialised commissioning CRGs and there is no link to the clinical expert groups.