Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICS

Money, finance and accounts

Revealed: The systems set to gain and lose hundreds of millions

10 April 2025

Nine integrated care systems are set to lose hundreds of millions in NHS funding relative to others in coming years – while eight stand to make big gains – under new NHS England funding policy.

Gesticulating hands in meeting

NHSE commends ICBs for ‘strong leadership’

20 January 2025

The quality of leadership at 13 integrated care boards has been praised by NHS England in its latest formal assessment of their performance.

joe mk

Tariff ‘insufficient’ for ‘premium’ cost of tackling long waiters, warns CEO

4 December 2024

There is “insufficient” funding for extra work needed to tackle long waits, a chief executive at one of the worst-performing trusts against a key elective target has said.

Rima Makarem PRD_9502

ICB chair steps down to join double-merger trust

23 October 2024

An integrated care board chair is leaving her role to join an integrated trust in the West Country, it has been announced.

Ambulance

Trust in financial dispute with two ICBs

17 October 2024

An ambulance trust has warned it may miss financial targets because it has failed to finalise some commissioning contracts halfway through the year.

CT scanner

Three ICSs responsible for a quarter of very long diagnostic waits

8 October 2024

Just three integrated care systems were responsible for nearly one in four 13-week waits for key diagnostic tests in recent months, HSJ analysis of official data has found.

Map ambulance response

Revealed: Three-fold variation in emergency response time by ICS

9 August 2024

A threefold variation in ambulance response for serious, urgent conditions has been revealed in new figures.

Milton Keynes Hospital

ICB admits defeat on key September target

23 July 2024

An East of England integrated care board expects to miss both the main national elective recovery target of eliminating 65-week breaches by September and a top diagnostic target, according to board papers.

Mobile phone

Threefold ICS variation in GP phone access revealed

12 July 2024

Patients trying to reach their GP are almost three times as likely to fail to get through in the worst-performing integrated care systems than the best, according to analysis of new annual figures. 

Dave West 2023

The Integrator: The ‘race to the bottom’ in ICS finances

16 May 2024

Insider tales and must-read analysis on how integration is reshaping health and care systems, NHS providers, primary care, and commissioning. This week by deputy editor Dave West.

mount vernon cancer centre

‘Patients are choosing palliative care over cancer treatment’ due to lack of local services, CEO warns

13 May 2024

Patients in part of the East of England are choosing to begin palliative care over cancer treatment because of prohibitive travel times and costs to get to the nearest specialist centre, a local system leader has warned.

lynelle-hales

ICB hires overseas CEO for new £1.5bn commissioning job

30 April 2024

An integrated care board has brought in a senior executive from overseas to lead the commissioning of £1.5bn worth of delegated specialised services for the East of England.

Professor Joe Harrison  for upload

Trust ‘fighting losing battle’ over elective waits, CEO admits

9 April 2024

A hospital chief executive has blamed a “mind-blowing increase” in cancer referrals for his trust’s deterioration in performance on long elective waits.

Bedford Hospital

Strikes spread to more trusts over backpay dispute

28 February 2024

Strike action by healthcare assistants looks set to spread to more trusts, having so far been confined to the North West region.

Money, finance and accounts

Nearly a third of ICSs admit finance plans will be missed

30 January 2024

At least 13 integrated care systems have now admitted they will miss the financial plans they signed up for at the start of the year.

mapclip1

London gets well over ‘fair share’ of specialised services while rural areas miss out

3 January 2024

People in some more rural areas are missing out on specialist treatments they should be getting, while Londoners are receiving a lot more than their “fair share”, new NHS England figures suggest.

Money, finance and accounts

Exclusive: Government and NHS in talks over £1bn funding gap

4 October 2023

Government is in talks with national NHS leaders over how to fill an urgent funding gap of at least £1bn this financial year, HSJ has learned, as new analysis shows all 42 local integrated care systems were behind their own plans less than halfway through 2023-24.

Digital innovation

Revealed: First ICS digital maturity ratings

18 July 2023

HSJ  can reveal the first ratings given to every integrated care system for the ‘digital maturity’ of its NHS providers.

Mobile phone

Revealed: the tenfold regional difference in access to GP records

10 May 2023

Fewer than one in 10 GP practices offers patients access to their records in several areas of England, with significant variation across England, six months ahead of a new deadline.

Digital network data

Revealed: two out of five ICSs lack a digital strategy

6 February 2023

Over 40 per cent of integrated care systems are yet to establish digital strategies, HSJ research has discovered.