Last week, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced that NHS England, a regulatory body for the NHS, will be scrapped and responsibilities will be put back into the Department of Health and Social Care.

The announcement included that Integrated Care Boards, such as our local West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, have been asked to cut their workforce by 50%.

It is not currently clear how this will affect the VCSE sector. NAVCA anticipate that the reforms will risk disrupting funding, partnerships and commissioning. Making it essential for communities and the VCSE sector to have a voice in decision-making.

The Nova Team will work with our statutory partners to explore these changes and continue to advocate for the VCSE sector at a local and regional level.

These changes will be difficult for our Wakefield Health and Care Partnership colleagues who are facing uncertainty, after having recently been through changes to meet budget constraints in the last financial year. There should be more clarity about the changes in the next few weeks but it will a challenging time across sectors, and there will have to be a fundamental reset of the ICB work over the next six months.

We will share more updates and provide as much insight as possible as to what this will mean for VCSE organisations.

Health and Social Care Secretary Announcement

On 13 March 2025, the Health and Social Care Secretary made a statement to the House of Commons on plans to abolish NHS England. Here is an extract:

Over the next 2 years, NHS England will be brought into the department entirely.

These reforms will deliver a much leaner top of the NHS, making significant savings of hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

That money will flow down to the front line to cut waiting times faster and deliver our Plan for Change, slashing through the layers of red tape and ending the infantilisation of frontline NHS leaders.

We will set local NHS providers free to innovate, develop new productive ways of working and focus on what matters most – delivering better care for patients.

West Yorkshire ICB Message to colleagues

Below is a message which was sent on Thursday 13 March to NHS team members from Rob Webster CBE, Chief Executive, NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and Lead Chief Executive, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.

Dear colleagues,

I wanted to write and update you on some news you may have seen today in the media, what we currently know, and the significant changes we are about to see in the capacity of our ICB and ICBs across England. This is in the context of significant financial pressures in the NHS and the move announced today for NHS England to become absorbed within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

NHS England has mandated that all Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) reduce their running costs by 50 per cent by Quarter 3 of 25/26 as part of a broader financial and operational reset. This directive follows previous cost-cutting measures and will require significant changes across the entire health, care and NHS system, including our organisation. In all of this, a focus on quality, productivity and effective working remains.

Today, with other Trust and ICB Chief Executives and Chairs, I attended a meeting in person with the Chief Executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard and Sir Jim Mackey. The importance of the reset and the move to a very strong focus on quality, productivity and a system that works for people was reinforced. Within that, quick moves to minimise costs – not just in ICBs – were outlined. Whilst we await clarity and guidance on how the cost reduction will be defined and measured, there was an important message shared that ICBs will remain an important part of local health and care systems up and down the country. Some rapid work on the essential functions and ideal capacity within ICBs is now in development.

To deliver this 50% reduction in running costs will require a fundamental shift in how we operate and we will need to work quickly to meet national timescales. I anticipate we will rapidly move to working on the following areas:

• Comprehensively review our structure to identify where cost savings can be made as well as considering how we may work differently with others in our system or more broadly across the NHS
• To think carefully about the specific functions that need to be delivered by the ICB, and what could be delivered through other arrangements such as provider collaboratives
• A focus on core functions to ensure we continue to meet our statutory responsibilities
• An overarching commitment to continue to address and reduce health inequalities for our local communities.

Working with you all will be vital as we respond to this ask and develop what will inevitably be a significantly smaller organisation to support our system in place and across West Yorkshire. We will of course share further information when we have it.

I am proud of the work the ICB and our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. We have a strong track record of delivery and an approach built firmly on doing the right thing for people in these difficult times.

With best wishes,
Rob