CHANGES have been proposed to NHS Devon’s Integrated Care Board (ICB).

Its functions and geography are being discussed as part of a wider NHS reform programme, to reduce management costs and focus more money on the front line.

All ICBs in England are being asked to significantly reduce running costs and shift to a more strategic role with different responsibilities for us and other parts of our health and care system, the Mid-Devon Advertiser understands.

For NHS Devon, following discussions with NHS England, it is proposed that it forms a wider ICB ‘cluster’ with neighbouring Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.

One Devon has said that the above is ‘very much a proposal’, which will need to be worked through in more detail.

The proposal is part of a wider reform of the NHS operating model across England, which will involve the integration of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, and a changed role for NHS regions, ICBs and providers.

As part of this, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are aiming to create a new, leaner and simpler way of working in which each part of the NHS is clear on its purpose, what it is accountable for, and to whom.

The aim also is to lay the foundations for longer-term reform to shift resources into prevention, wellbeing and care closer to people’s homes, as part of the Government’s emerging 10-Year Health Plan.

Locally, the priority for the NHS is to continue providing ‘high-quality patient care and reduce waits whether that is waits for surgery, waits for an ambulance, waits to be seen in the Emergency Department or waits to be discharged with hospital’, the One Devon website reads.