Valerie Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with NHS England on its decision not to renew the position of National Clinical Director for Adult Neurology from March 2016.
Jane Ellison
Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s Medical Director, has undertaken a review of the National Clinical Director (NCD) resource designed to focus clinical advisory resources on areas where major programmes of work are currently being taking forward, or areas identified as priorities for improvement. As a result NHS England has proposed to change the way in which clinical advice is received in speciality areas in the future.
Where there will no longer be a specific NCD role, NHS England will secure expert clinical advice from its clinical networks, through its relationships with professional bodies and by appointing clinical advisors. For neurology, it is planned that advice will be provided through a range of sources such as: clinical leads and members of the NHS England-funded neurology clinical networks; the Neurology Clinical Reference Group; and the Royal Colleges. It is expected that these new arrangements will be in place from 1 April 2016.
The Neurology Intelligence Network (NIN) is a joint partnership programme between Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England to support the generation and dissemination of neurology-related health intelligence. The NIN, which is currently funded by PHE, faces no change to its current resource for the next financial year.
