Trusts fear ‘fragmentation’ of specialised services under Health Bill reforms

Providers fear 'fragmentation' of specialised services as NHS England begins delegating specialised services budgets to integrated care systems under reform plans.

One leader of a specialist trust told HSJ: “There is a real risk of fragmentation. You can already see some of the conversations around various services around how people want to keep patients within their own ICS. There is the potential there for systems to buck the trend of centralising specialist services. Rather than bringing expertise and quality together, systems looking after budgets will look to set up their own specialist services.” 

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Source: HSJ, 17 August 2021