non-departmental public body overview | |
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Formed | 1 April 2013 |
Jurisdiction | England |
Headquarters | Leeds |
non-departmental public body executives |
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Parent department | Department of Health |
Website | www |
NHS England is an executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department of Health.
NHS England oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It holds the contracts for GPs and NHS dentists.
NHS England comprises around 6,500 staff in 50 sites around England. The bulk of its staff previously worked for the decommissioned primary care trusts and strategic health authorities.
NHS England is the operating name of the NHS Commissioning Board and, before that, the NHS Commissioning Board Authority. It was set up as a special health authority of the NHS in October 2011 as the forerunner to becoming an NDPB on 1 April 2013. It was renamed NHS England on 26 March 2013. Its legal name remains the NHS Commissioning Board.
Sir David Nicholson who became Chief Executive at the establishment of the Board retired at the end of March 2014 and was replaced by Simon Stevens. One of Stevens' first acts was to announce a restructure of its 27 area teams in response to a requirement to reduce running costs which would reduce staffing by around 500. The 27 teams outside London were reduced to 12 in 2015.
NHS England in conjunction with the other central regulators established what is called a "success regime" in south and mid Essex, North Cumbria and north east and western Devon in June 2015. It is intended to tackle “deep rooted and systemic issues that previous interventions have not tackled across [a] whole health and care economy”.
In 2016 it organised the geographical division of England into 44 Sustainability and transformation plan areas with populations between 300,000 and 3 million. These areas were locally agreed between NHS Trusts, local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups. A leader was appointed for each area, who is to be responsible for the implementation of the plans which are to be agreed by the component organisations. They will be "working across organisational boundaries to help build a consensus for transformation and the practical steps to deliver it".