Editor’s blog Thursday 13 May 2010: Why no SHA assurance publications for six SHAs?

I've just recently got interested in the SHA assurance process (this is archived content from the DH site-as-was, obviously).

Now these are interesting and useful documents.

The quick links have all, interestingly, stopped working since I started ringing round and writing this story, but you can get them through the page above for:
NHS North West
NHS South West
NHS South East Coast
NHS East of England

And you can see that the archived page states, "The SHAs still to go through the SHA Assurance process are:
April 2010: NHS East Midlands
May 2010: NHS South Central and NHS North East"

The unlisted three
You will note the absence from the DH list of NHS London, NHS Yorkshire and Humber and NHS West Midlands.

A DH spokesperson stated that they understood London and West Midlands had been done in January; Yorkshire and Humber in March; and East Midlands in April (although they also sensibly noted that purdah might have scuppered that last one).

All six SHAs' media teams didn't have an immediate answer - so it's probably not double-top secret, but all are promising to look into it.

Email queries, doubling up as FOI requests, are in.

Watch this space.

UPDATE: NHS South Central are first to reply - thier assurance process is still under way, and should be publishing a report in July.

NHS North East are second - "The Department of Health (DH) assurance panel visit to the north east will take place as planned at the end of May. The report will then be published at the first public board meeting after the SHA receives the formal feedback and report from the DH and it is expected that this will be later this year".