Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria his Department has used to determine which integrated care boards should merge.

NHS England has asked the integrated care boards (ICBs) to act primarily as strategic commissioners of health and care services, and to reduce the duplication of responsibilities within their structure, with the expectation of achieving a 50% cost reduction in their running cost allowance. NHS England provided additional guidance to ICBs, National Health Service trusts, and NHS foundation trusts on 1 April 2025, where ICBs were tasked with developing plans by the end of May setting out how they will manage their resources to deliver across their priorities. This letter can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/working-together-in-2025-26-to-lay-the-foundations-for-reform/

Details of how ICBs will work together to share functions and agree clustering arrangements to deliver services and meet local needs may emerge following the publication the plans.

Ministers and the Department will work with the new transformation team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to ensure ICBs continue to fulfil their future functions effectively, within the running costs cap, and unlock the benefit of working at scale to deliver better care for patients.