Plans for transferring NHS England’s (NHSE) “direct commissioning functions” to integrated care boards (ICBs) have been delayed by a year.
Last February, the body told C+D that the “vast majority” of proposals to delegate “all vaccination services” and “most components of screening services” to ICBs would be in place by April 1, 2026.
But earlier this week, NHSE revealed in a “direct commissioning update” to ICBs that the plans have been postponed to April 2027.
Read more: ‘Commission by age’ for better vaccine uptake, urges CCA
“Subject to parliamentary approval” the commissioning functions for “vaccinations, child health information services and almost all components of screening services” will transfer to ICBs “from April 2027”, it explained.
The letter highlighted, however, that NHSE expects “all ICBs to be fully engaged with, and leading the commissioning of these services” from next month with the support of regional commissioning teams.
And it said that the NHS executive “has now agreed indicative funding envelopes for its regional commissioning teams, including relevant commissioning support unit functions in 2026/27”.
C+D approached NHSE for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
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When NHSE announced this delegation of commissioning last year, it explained that “ICBs will have responsibility for a wider range of prevention services for their populations and greater levers to discharge their population health function”.
And it noted that “a very small proportion of the overall [screening] programme” is set to be “retained by NHSE and commissioned once for the whole country”.
This week’s letter clarified that “only at the point NHSE is abolished” will the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) “take over responsibility for commissioning”.
Read more: ICBs to commission ‘all vaccination services’ from April 2026
It comes after the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) urged the Health and Social Care Committee to “harness” community pharmacy to improve vaccine uptake in the UK.
Community pharmacy “has the potential to administer all adult NHS vaccination programmes”, it said, adding that it can eventually “contribute to the entire National Immunisation Programme”.
It stressed, however, that “realising this vision requires changes in approach”.
