Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to support NHS England's engagement with interested clinical commissioning groups in developing collaborative commissioning arrangements.

Over the past two years, NHS England has been working to support greater clinical commissioning group (CCG) engagement in specialised services through the collaborative commissioning programme. Arrangements have been put in place at a regional and sub-regional level to support engagement between NHS England and CCGs.

The programme has recently been refreshed in light of the emergence of sustainability and transformation plans (STPs). Working with STPs provides a significant opportunity to use collaborative commissioning to better join up care, improve outcomes, and benefit patients.

In January 2016, to support the move to place-based commissioning, nominal CCG allocations for 2016/17 – 2020/21 were published. The allocations included approximately £14.5 billion of the total specialised budget of approximately £15.7 billion, excluding items such as highly specialised services. These place-based allocations were included in STP control totals and supported discussions on specialised commissioning with STPs.

NHS England is developing options for its regional teams, CCGs and STPs to work more collaboratively, with a priority focus on mental health, learning disabilities, and cancer services. It is also working with a small number of STP areas to support implementation and disseminate the learning to the wider system.