Editor's blog Thursday 14 October 2010: Department of Health confirms that NHS Information Centre is not part of it

I have to wonder why the NHS Information Centre appears not to be telling the truth.

You may remember from my story yesterday about the IC's refusal to answer my questions about the £8 million sale of its shareholding in Dr Foster Intelligence: one of their pretexts was that they actually were part of the DH.

Unfortunately for the IC, this release on the changes to DH-associated non-departmental public bodies confirms that this defence is in fact incorrect.

The DH's release unambiguously states, "An Advisory Non-Departmental Public Body is a body which has an advisory role in the processes of national Government, but is not a Government Department or part of one. An Arm’s Length Body, or Executive Non-Departmental Public Body, is the same as above, except it always has a statutory remit and the executive element means it can carry out and implement advice given.".

So the Information Centre are going to need to try again.