Monitor (NHS)
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| non-departmental public body overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2004 |
| Jurisdiction | England |
| Headquarters | Wellington House, 133-155 Waterloo Road, London |
| Motto | Making the health sector work for patients |
| non-departmental public body executive |
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| Parent department | NHS Improvement |
| Website | www |
Monitor has been a part of NHS Improvement since 1 April 2016. Previously it was an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health. It is the sector regulator for health services in England. Its chief executive is Jim Mackey and its Chair is Ed Smith.
The body was established in 2004 under the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, which made it responsible for authorising, monitoring and regulating NHS foundation trusts.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 gave Monitor additional duties.
In addition to assessing NHS trusts for foundation trust status and ensuring that foundation trusts are well led, in terms of quality and finances, Monitor also has a duty to:
Monitor's main tool for carrying out these functions is the NHS provider licence, which contains obligations for providers of NHS services.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 requires everyone who provides an NHS health care service to hold a licence unless they are exempt under regulations made by the Department of Health.
Foundation trusts are licensed from 1 April 2013. All other non-exempt providers will be required to apply for a licence from April 2014.
It was announced in June 2015 that the chief executive posts at Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority were to be merged, although there would not be a complete merger of the organisations. In April 2016 both organisations became part of NHS Improvement.
In July 2014, Monitor was criticised by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons (PAC) for the lack of clinical expertise and frontline NHS experience amongst its staff. The PAC noted that: “Only 21 of Monitor's 337 staff have an NHS operational background and only 7 have a clinical background, which damages Monitor's credibility in dealing with trusts and its effectiveness in diagnosing problems and developing solutions”. The PAC also criticised the proportion of Monitor’s budget spent on external consultants (£9 million of Monitor's £48 million budget in 2013-14) and found that “some NHS foundation trusts had been allowed to struggle for far too long in breach of their regulatory conditions. It has taken Monitor too long to help trusts in difficulty to improve, with three trusts having been in breach of their regulatory conditions since 2009”. At the time of the PAC’s hearing, of 147 foundation trusts 39(26%) were expected to be in deficit by the end of 2013-14 and on 31 December 2013 25 (17%) were in breach of the conditions attached to their status. The PAC also noted: “It is wholly inappropriate that the same person acted as both Chair and Chief Executive of Monitor between March 2011 and January 2014. This was contrary to corporate governance good practice and Monitor's own guidance to NHS foundation trusts”.
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