Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which service specifications NHS England plans to (a) develop and (b) update before commissioning is delegated to integrated care boards.

NHS England will only delegate specialised services to integrated care boards (ICBs) following a moderation process. This may mean that ICBs take on responsibility for commissioning specific specialised services at varying points in time. In parallel, NHS England is taking forward work to update service specifications for specialised services. Some specifications will need only minor changes and these will be progressed via a light touch process, whilst others require a deeper review which will take longer to complete.