Public Accounts Committee 14 September 2016
- Giving evidence to the inquiry following the NAO report into the collapse of the UnitingCare contract Simon Stevens discussed the safeguards which are being put in place going forward.
- Q172
- “Simon Stevens: From October, we will publish a checklist that will have to be gone through for any CCG wanting to embark on these kinds of service changes, and NHS England and NHS Improvement will create a joint assurance process that, for any part of the country that is going through a big thing of this nature, will answer four questions.
- First, can we be convinced that the clinical model—the service model they are talking about—will actually produce net benefits to the health service across the whole economy?
- Second, is the provider—whoever they are— actually capable of managing the contract and the risk that is involved?
- Thirdly, have people thought through the consequences for other providers? That is not to say there is a veto on change, but nevertheless in the real world there may be consequences for other providers, so what are you going to do about that?
- Fourthly, as we talked about earlier, does there need to be any change in the regulation that NHS improvement has for that provider or providers and the Care Quality Commission as well?
- Those four tests would have to be applied to any of these kinds of arrangements in future.”
