DHSC board will block unfunded safety recommendations

A “revamped, revitalised and reinforced” National Quality Board will decide what safety and quality recommendations the NHS will adopt, with an eye to their cost-effectiveness, the long-awaited Dash Review has said.

Penny Dash’s review into patient safety suggests the NQB – which has existed since 2009 – should be co-chaired by herself as chair of NHS England, with Care Quality Commission chair Sir Mike Richards. When NHSE is abolished it will be co-chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care’s lead non-executive director for quality.

The new board will act as a “clearing house” to coordinate and prioritise recommendations, avoiding “unfunded mandates being imposed on the system without due consideration”, Dr Dash recommended. It cites “those arising from reports, reviews, inquiries, investigations, guidance and activities of various bodies” being “imposed on providers without due diligence”.

The NQB should have a role in monitoring the implementation and impact of recommendations from previous reviews and inquiries, the report added. 

Dr Dash’s report, which had been widely trailed, is highly critical of what health and social care secretary Wes Streeting has described as a “labyrinth” of regulators and patient bodies and the “mission creep” pursued by some of them.

The report says that, over the last decade, there has been a shift towards patient safety over other areas of quality of care, but “relatively small improvements have been seen” in safety.

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Source: HSJ, 8 July 2025