How health care needs are assessed and met
18.7The Secretary of State for Health is under a general or ‘target’ duty to ‘promote’ a ‘comprehensive health service’ (section 1). The function of this, and other similar duties imposed on the Secretary of State for Health, seems to be to remind him to ensure that the NHS is as comprehensive as budgets and other resources permit.
1R v North and East Devon Health Authority ex p Coughlan [2001] QB 213 at paras 24–25.18.8As noted above, the main commissioners of NHS services are now:
•NHS England (primary and dental care and specialist services);
•Clinical Commissioning Groups (‘CCG’)(a wide range of acute and community NHS services other than those commissioned by NHS England); and
•Local authorities (public health services).
18.9The commissioning duty imposed on CCG is limited in the sense that that the duty of a CCG is to arrange for the provision of services for patients ‘to such extent as it considers necessary to meet the reasonable requirements of the persons for whom it has responsibility’ (section 3 of the NHSA 2006). Many of the duties imposed on NHS England are similarly constrained (see section 3B of the NHSA 2006) and the same applies to local authorities (section 2B of the NHSA 2006).