Requesting Senate Advice
The Clinical Senate will respond to requests for clinical advice on matters that support commissioner decision making from Integrated Care Systems, NHS England, Local Authorities / Health & Wellbeing Boards and other stakeholders.
A request for independent clinical advice can be made, and accepted, at any stage of service development. The Clinical Senate can:
- Provide commissioners with informal clinical advice in the early stages of consideration and while options are being explored.
- Support commissioners where there is a need for advice or recommendations on complex clinical issues that would benefit from a whole system, strategic response.
- At the request of NHS England, as part of its service change assurance process, the Senate can provide independent clinical advice on a service change proposal. The Clinical Senate's involvement in this process does not preclude the Senate from offering formal or informal advice to commissioners at an early or developmental stage of the service change proposal.
Working with lead commissioners, the Clinical Senate will agree terms of reference for a topic and then bring together the relevant expertise from its Council and Assembly Membership and, where appropriate, external experts and other relevant bodies (e.g. Regional Clinical Networks).
The nine Clinical Senates across England recognise that some matters will impact across the geography of more than one Clinical Senate and are committed to working collaboratively.
The Clinical Senate is happy to take requests for advice or review at any stage in service design, from the very early thoughts to providing advice on clinical models.
All requests for advice are confidential, the members of our review panels sign confidentiality agreements before they are provided with information.
The requesting organisation is the owner of any reports written by the Clinical Senate; however the Clinical Senate publishes the advice it provides on this website with the agreement of the requesting organisation.
The Clinical Senate management team is happy to discuss with you any ideas, proposals or requests for advice at any stage. The team will work with you to develop the information needed to go forward as a formal request and will keep you informed during the process. If you are unsure if you have something that the Clinical Senate can help with, please contact the Head of Senate for an informal chat.
Helen Bell
Head of Clinical Senate
Email