Health and Care Act 2022
Page last updated on 15 January 2024
Overview:
The Health and Care Act become law after receiving Royal Assent on the 28th April 2022. The Bill places various duties for the ICSs. Below are the specific areas pertaining to ICSs and research:
14Z40 Duty in respect of research
Each integrated care board must, in the exercise of its functions, facilitate or otherwise promote
a) research on matters relevant to the health service, and
b) the use in the health service of evidence obtained from research.
14Z59 Performance assessment of integrated care boards
1) NHS England must conduct a performance assessment of each integrated care board in respect of each financial year.
2) A performance assessment is an assessment of how well the integrated care board has discharged its functions during that year.
3) The assessment must, in particular, include an assessment of how well the integrated care board has discharged its duties under—
a. section 14Z40 (duty in respect of research)
b. other items are also listed
In addition to the above, the ICB joint forward plan and annual reports must explain how ICBs propose to discharge a number of duties, including their research and innovation duties.
Key Documents:
Duty in respect of research (in detail)
Section 14Z40 puts a duty on integrated care boards in respect of research. Each integrated care board must, in the exercise of its functions, facilitate or otherwise promote health research and the use of evidence obtained from research. The aim of this section is to further embed research in the health and care system.
In practice, each integrated care board could exercise its duty to facilitate or otherwise promote research and the use of evidence obtained from research by:
considering research when exercising its commissioning functions, both in terms of ensuring that the services commissioned have been informed by the evidence obtained from research and in selecting providers who are research-active;
encouraging its providers to be actively involved in the delivery of research and to provide services that are informed by evidence from research;
having a dedicated research office/team providing support for research;
articulating local research needs when assessing local needs, articulating plans for addressing these when preparing strategies and plans, and encouraging its partner organisations to play an active and collaborative role in pursuing these;
having Board-level discussions on research activity, the use of the evidence from research, the research workforce, and research culture within the integrated care system; and/or
where appropriate, exercising the duty to facilitate or otherwise promote research in conjunction with its power to conduct, commission or assist the conduct of research (paragraph 13(1) of Schedule 1 of the NHS Act 2006), for example by hosting or being a collaborating partner in research infrastructure.