11/10/2016

Bevan Brittan is encouraging NHS England and the Secretary of State for Health to consider a change in the rules restricting NHS Trusts from owning any corporate entities such as limited companies, as a way of boosting the likely effectiveness of Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs).

Currently, NHS Improvement (as NHS Trusts' regulator) has taken the view that NHS Trusts are not allowed to enter into corporate vehicles, whereas Foundation Trusts can do so.

This could block NHS Trusts from creating shared service companies or participating in Accountable Care Organisations as part of an STP.  The sharing of services is potentially a key part of the kind of integration across health, care and other public services that STPs are designed to create.

The 44 STP footprints across England and Wales need to submit their final STP plans to NHS England by 21 October.

Bevan Brittan partner David Owens explained: “In some STP areas, we are seeing plans to share services or merge back offices between different service functions.  One of the most effective ways of doing this is to create a new corporate entity for that service, of which all parties have joint ownership as shareholders.  But NHS Trusts are not allowed to do this. Similarly the rule restricts the ability of NHS Trusts to participate in corporate ACOs.

“I believe it would be very worthwhile for NHS England to consider changing the rules in this respect.  The Secretary of State could confer the power on NHS Trusts, through a statutory instrument.

“Doing this would, I believe, considerably enhance the prospects of STPs being a success.  Given that STPs are at the heart of the future strategy for the NHS, this is an important area to address.”

Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it. We won't set optional cookies unless you enable them. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences. For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookies page.

Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.

Analytics cookies

We'd like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collection and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.
For more information on how these cookies work, please see our Cookies page.