Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the functions of the new NHS model regions will be, including which responsibilities will be delegated from (1) the Department of Health and Social Care, (2) NHS England, and (3) integrated care boards; and whether they will publish the detail of the timescale for those new models to be in place.

The proposed core functions of the National Health Service regional teams are set out in the Model Region Blueprint which has been widely cascaded to the service. It forms one part of the wider changes to the NHS operating model. NHS regions will have three core functions:

• strategic regional leadership, which involves leading the regional health system to support delivery of reform, oversee planning, investment and reconfiguration, support innovation, and ensure effective regional leadership strategy and talent pipelines;
• performance management, which involves holistic oversight of performance in line with national frameworks including understanding board and leadership capability, understanding early warning, and managing risk; and
• improvement and intervention, which involves a regional approach to improvement support and intervention to ensure high quality and sustainable care, developing capability, addressing underperformance, and overseeing regulatory interventions as required.

NHS regional teams are currently a core part of NHS England and work together with national teams to discharge the functions of the organisation. There are currently no plans to delegate additional responsibilities to regional teams from the Department or the integrated care boards.

In March 2025, it was announced that NHS England would be abolished, and its duties and functions combined with the Department, pending legislation. The future organisation will continue to have seven regional teams aligned to the current NHS England regional footprints. In the future organisation, we want our seven regional teams to be leaner and more empowered, working as an integral part of the new centre. Work is underway to consider the role that regional teams should play in the future once NHS England and the Department have been brought together as a single organisation.