Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department has made an assessment on the potential impact of the planned re-organisation of the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB with Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough on the provision of GP services in rural communities.

As part of cluster preparation arrangements, every integrated care board (ICB) will complete an Equality Impact Assessment, which will consider the footprint population and the impact of the changes to ICB working arrangements.

ICBs have a crucial role as strategic commissioners of local healthcare services. This includes the commissioning of GP services. In Schedule 3, Part 1 of the NHS Health and Care Act 2022, duty 82B (1) states that each integrated care board must exercise its powers so as to secure the provision of primary medical services to such extent as it considers necessary to meet the reasonable requirements of the persons for whom it has responsibility.

The planned reorganisation of Bedfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB will not remove the statutory responsibility for ICBs to commission GP services for all of its residents, including those from small and rural communities.