Consultation on the draft Guidance on good governance and collaboration

Overview

As part of the development of Integrated Care Systems, NHS England are committed to supporting NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts to work effectively within systems.

We have prepared draft Guidance on good governance and collaboration under the NHS provider licence. Alongside the draft Guidance on good governance and collaboration, we are also currently consulting separately on a draft Code of governance for NHS provider trusts and a draft Addendum to Your statutory duties – reference guide for NHS foundation trust governors and a draft Code of governance for NHS provider trusts. Together, the Code, Addendum, and Guidance on good governance and collaboration will support trusts to work effectively within Integrated Care Systems.

The draft Guidance on good governance and collaboration sets clear high-level expectations of collaboration in three key areas and details five characteristics of governance arrangements to support effective collaboration.

We have issued separate more detailed resources to support providers to meet the specific challenge of collaborating with other providers at scale. Please see Working together at scale: guidance on provider collaboratives. We do not repeat this specific detail in the guidance on good governance and collaboration.

How expectations of trusts' collaboration with other trusts and system partners are evolving as Integrated Care Systems develop

We consider the draft guidance on good governance and collaboration as a next step in the ongoing evolution of trusts’ collaboration as part of Integrated Care Systems and provider collaboratives.

We recognise that as Integrated Care Systems develop further – in line with the Integrated Care Systems: Design Framework and the government’s Health and Care Act – expectations of trusts will continue to evolve to support local ambition, and there will be a need for growing adoption of new collaborative ways of working. We will need to work with stakeholders to go further in clarifying refreshed expectations of collaboration by trusts and ensuring that trusts are supported to meet these.

We are taking the opportunity of this consultation to also seek your views as part of a wider conversation about how trusts’ collaboration with other trusts and system partners should continue to evolve as Integrated Care Systems develop further, any issues you think need to be resolved, and how you think NHS England should seek to address them.

Why your views matter

Feedback from the consultation on the draft Guidance on good governance and collaboration will be taken on board in readiness for the publication of the final version in Summer 2022.

We will use your answers to the wider questions about the evolving expectations of trusts' collaboration with other trusts and system partners  to plan further work to be undertaken in 2022/23 to support trusts to continue to adapt to system working and collaboration.