Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of his Department's implementation of the recommendations on stronger clinical leadership and management roles outlined in the paper entitled High Quality Care For All: NHS Next Stage Review Final Report, published in June 2008.

There are no current plans to assess implementation of the 2008 High Quality Care for All report.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the National Health Service has strong and effective leadership in place. As Lord Darzi stated in his recent independent report on the NHS in 2024, “the NHS has many strong and capable leaders”, although we know there is more work to do to strengthen NHS leadership. That is why there is a significant programme of work underway to improve NHS management and leadership, including our commitment to establish an NHS College of Executive and Clinical Leadership and to introduce professional standards for, and regulation of, NHS managers. This builds on a wider programme of work being led by NHS England to develop standards, a code of practice, and a curriculum for NHS managers and leaders.