Health Authority boundaries
Letter from Department of Health

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your letter of 26 September regarding the consultation exercise on the proposed boundaries of health authorities. I apologise for the delay in replying.

As you will be aware the full public consultation on the boundaries of the new Strategic Health Authorities started in 7 September 2001 and is being conducting by the South West Regional Office of the Department of Health.

The consultation exercise is expected to be completed on 30 November 2001. The Secretary of State for Health will then consider all the views and comments received during this process, before making his final decision and drawing up the boundaries of the new Strategic Health Authorities.

Current thinking is that Strategic Health Authorities will have quite different responsibilities from those of existing health authorities. They will lead the development and empowerment of innovative and uniformly excellent front-line NHS organisations.

Strategic Health Authorities will be accountable to the Secretary of State and their key function will be to ensure that all local organisations work together as "one NHS" to deliver the modernised patient services demanded by the NHS Plan. This will be done by:-

• Reaching an annual accountability agreement with the Department of Health and ensuring delivery by the local health community;
• Securing performance improvement and driving the modernisation agenda;
• Brokering strategic solutions necessary to resolve conflicts and to ensure delivery;
• Creating capacity through the preparation and delivery of cohesive strategies for capital investment, information management and the development of the workforce including clinical and managerial leadership;
• Ensuring appropriate arrangement exist for securing the provision of regional and national specialist services; and
• Ensuring that there are effective and transparent scrutiny arrangements and that consultation arrangements are appropriate for changes spanning more than one local organisation.

Thank you for taking the time to write with your formal response to the consultation document, I will ensure that your comments are taken into account as part of the consultation process.

Yours,

Ms Hazel Blears