UPDATED: KPMG has won a contract to design how NHS Improvement will be created and function.

  • Contract to design NHS Improvement understood to be worth more than £1m
  • Consultancy will work alongside “integration director” to produce draft organisation structure by December and “comprehensive operating model” by February
  • Work could also include “leadership review” and “leadership development interventions” of existing employees.

The wide ranging work will cover all aspects of how the new regulator, formed by the merger of Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority, will operate, its structure and culture.

HSJ understands the contract is worth more than £1m.

A bid document, obtained by HSJ, said “The principal focus for NHS Improvement will be to drive and support both urgent operational improvement at the front line and the long term sustainability of the healthcare system, working collaboratively with partners to achieve this.

“Alongside that, NHS Improvement will be the health sector regulator.”

KPMG could also lead a “leadership review” of existing staff and “leadership development interventions”, the document said.

There is no mention of what could happen to Monitor’s competition function in the document.

The successful bidder will work alongside an “internal programme management office” of 15-20 people led by an “integration director”. Monitor this morning confirmed the integration director is John Wilderspin, who is being seconded to the TDA four days a week from NHS England where he is national implementation director. He is working on the Smith review one day a week and the secondment is due to conclude in March.

The document said the selected consultancy must produce “high-level organisational design options” and a “high-level transition plan and pipeline”, which will see a draft organisational structure produced by the beginning of December and final version by the end of this year.

It will also need to produce a “comprehensive operating model”, including “metrics for assessing quality, finances and sustainability” and models for “intervention and escalation of providers”, “economic regulation” and “approvals of changes to organisational form (for example, applications for foundation trust status or transactions) and capital investments, etc”.

The first version of this must be completed by early February with a final operating model and strategy document submitted in March.

HSJ understands Deloitte and McKinsey were also shortlisted for the work.

Asked how the procurement of support fitted with Monitor’s own £50,000 cap on consultancy spending, a spokesman said the market exercise had been approved by the Department of Health.

A Monitor spokesman said: “This is principally being staffed by people who currently work for one of the three organisations. However additional support is being sought. This support has been approved by the Department of Health.”

Although the major components of NHS Improvement will come from Monitor and the TDA, it will take on the patient safety function from NHS England. It will also incorporate the advancing change team from NHS Improving Quality and the intensive support teams from NHS Interim Management and Support.

Northumbria Healthcare FT chief executive Jim Mackey was named as the first head of the new organisation earlier this month.

This article was updated on 4 November following the award of the contract.

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