North Central and North West London Integrated Care Boards will formally merge

The ICBs, responsible for planning and paying for local NHS and care services, are set to legally merge – becoming a new organisation serving 13 boroughs and circa 4.5m residents and service users.

In recent months, the teams at North Central London ICB (NCL) and North West London ICB (NWL) have been working together to explore how greater levels of collaboration could produce cost savings for both organisations, facilitate a move to being highly effective strategic commissioners, while still delivering for local populations.

Both boards considered options appraisals which set out a range of potential approaches as well as a full merger, including remaining standalone, keeping an informal collaborative approach; and clustering – where both would remain legally separate organisations but with some elements of joint leadership.

These options were evaluated against key criteria to explore the extent to which each would enable both organisations to continue to provide high quality and robust services. This week, the two Boards have both supported a recommendation that a fully-integrated merger was the best option.

Chair of North Central London ICB, Paul Najsarek: “Our focus as a board is on what is best for local residents, patients and service users. This option represents not a defensive approach to change, but one which is about embracing it, and one which provides the strongest chance for excellence in future – for our communities, our residents and our staff.

“We carefully considered the options and were convinced that the case for organisational scale was clear and gives us the best possible opportunity.

“What was also clear from our discussions, at both board meetings, was that, while getting the initial decision right is crucial, it is only the start in terms of that pursuit, and delivery of, excellence. There is no complacency about the scale of the task which lies ahead.”

Acting Chair of North West London ICB, Anita Charlesworth: “The government’s recent 10-year plan sets out an ambitious agenda to transform the NHS and reduce health inequalities.

“In North West London we are determined to improve quality and outcomes for all residents. Moving forward with a full merger means that we will be able to become the best possible strategic commissioner to deliver results for our population by enabling us to build an organisation that retains, attracts and develops the skills and talent necessary to deliver – both now and in the future.

“I’d like to thank all colleagues across North West and North Central London for their hard work in producing such a robust and thorough assessment to inform our decisions. The pace and quality of work will continue as we work with partners and staff to develop a strong and effective implementation plan in place to maximise the benefits of the merger for all our residents.”

Frances O’Callaghan, Chief Executive, North Central London ICB: “Taking forward a merger is ultimately about how we can best serve our patients and residents.

“By bringing together the best of both organisations, we would create a resilient and ambitious ICB that can continue to focus on improving access to health, reducing inequalities, moving services closer to the community through neighbourhood delivery, and ensuring the health system works better than it does today.

“It is clear from our work to date that being able to offer scale – as a merged organisation – enables us to be more resilient and cost-effective.

“We have listened carefully to the feedback from all our partners as they endorsed this proposal. We know that population health, neighbourhoods and place development must continue to be at the forefront of transforming services for patients and residents.”

Rob Hurd, Chief Executive, North West London ICB: “We want to build a stronger, more resilient organisation that enables our staff to thrive and allows us to serve our residents in the best way possible. Our shared view is that organisational scale is a key enabler to be an effective strategic commissioner, and a full merger is the right solution.

“I’m really proud of the work that we have done in developing neighbourhood health and partnership working and we need the right resources to enable us to build on this and further develop within our role as a strategic commissioner.

“We also want to ensure we are able to retain and attract the very best people to work in North London – again there is a real benefit to having a certain scale, and having the opportunity to collaborate and utilise the huge range of partners across the combined North West and North Central area is very exciting.”