Despite spirited resistance from NHS Confederation and NHS Providers an amendment was passed last night in Parliament that nails down the exclusion of private interests from Integrated Care Boards. 
  Each integrated care board must set out in its constitution— 
 
(a) the arrangements for managing conflicts and potential conflicts of interest in such a way as to ensure that they do not, and do not appear to affect the integrity of the board’s decision-making processes, 
 (b)   the process by which an  appointment of a member to the integrated care board or any appointment to any committee or sub-committee of the integrated care board that has a commissioning function must be made so as to avoid the appointment of anyone who would be perceived to have a conflict or potential conflict of interest, and 
(c)  the arrangements for ensuring that no member of any committee or sub-committee of the integrated care board who has a conflict or potential conflict of interest obtains access to information that might be perceived to favour the interest or potential interest. 
 
This adds to what was already conceded and is in the Bill: 
  
The (ICB) constitution must prohibit a person from appointing someone as a member (“the candidate”) if they consider that the appointment could reasonably be regarded as undermining the independence of the health service because of the candidate’s involvement with the private healthcare sector or otherwise. 
  
The wording was drafted so as not to draw in non-profit and social enterprises but it applies to any of the major private provider organisations. Another amendment was passed that ensures that ICBs have a representative covering mental health – to align with “parity of esteem” and to challenge big hospital/acute sector dominance. 
 
It is hard to see how even the most sceptical could see any loopholes in this, but as News from Nowhere often reminds us, the minds of conspiracy theorists are unfathomable. 
  
Source: NfN moles in the Mother of Parliaments