Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee
Conclusion 9
Seventh Report - Integrated Care Systems: autonomy and accountability
Published 30 Mar 2023
Paragraph 38
Addressed to Department of Health and Social Care
Health and Social Care Committee Integrated Care Systems: autonomy and accountability All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Improving outcomes in population health and healthcare is one of the four core purposes of ICSs. Despite this, there is no mandated representation for public health professionals on Integrated Care Boards. Without that voice of expertise driving the public health agenda on ICBs, we are sceptical that ICSs will succeed in addressing longer-term priorities and fear that the move to ICSs will, once again, result in a sickness service, not a health service for the future.
From: Health and Social Care Committee, Seventh Report - Integrated Care Systems: autonomy and accountability (HC 587), paragraph 38, 30 March 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 June 2023 (deadline 30 May 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the committee's report and states that it "remains committed to the development of ICSs", responding to the committee's and the linked Hewitt Review recommendations together, with some accepted, some supported in principle or kept under consideration, and some not agreed.
- On leadership, it states: "We accept the value of having a national leadership programme across health, care and wider sectors."
- On a national prevention spending shift, it says: "we do not agree with imposing a national expectation of an essentially arbitrary shift in spending."
- On centrally gathering ICB membership data, it says this "will be duplicating efforts as all the information is publicly available".
- On CQC ratings, DHSC "will consider the best approach regarding ICS ratings" and states that CQC "will start to test the ratings" in 2024 to 2025.