The NHS Commissioning Board Authority has today published its Mandate consultation response – Our NHS care objectives – a draft mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board.

Professor Malcolm Grant, Chair, NHS Commissioning Board Authority said:

“The mandate is fundamental to the Government’s vision of a ‘liberated NHS’. Putting the NHS Outcomes Framework at the heart of the mandate signals an unprecedented and welcome shift towards a system focused on outcomes, not processes. The Government should be applauded for this.

“I would urge the Government, in finalising its mandate, to be ambitious, looking again for every opportunity to focus on the outcomes that matter to patients and the public. The reward will be a virtuous cycle of innovation and learning in the commissioning system. The NHS Commissioning Board is committed to supporting the autonomy of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and to the principle of ‘assumed liberty’ alongside transparent accountability.

“I think the critical tests of the mandate will be whether a CCG leader can look at it and say ‘yes, this gives me the necessary freedom to address the needs of my local population’, and an interested member of the public can pick it up and understand clearly the Government’s ambitions for the NHS and hold the NHS to account. The mandate provides an unique opportunity to make this happen.”