NHS England and NHS Improvement now come together to act as a single organization

The NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme (NIPP) is commissioned by the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). It is designed to accelerate the evaluation and implementation of innovation that supports post-pandemic ways of working, builds service resilience, and delivers benefits to patients. Fourteen projects have been funded and have now commenced activity that will be ongoing until March 2023.

In February 2021, the Clinical Coding and Schedule Development (CCSD) working group, which develops and maintains procedural and diagnostics nomenclature for private payers in England, published Bulletins 0182 and 0079 with changes to be implemented no later than April 10, 2022. Three new procedure codes concerned robotic surgery in orthopaedic area, spinal procedures, and ophthalmology, and five new diagnostic codes were introduced.

On February 04, 2022, NHSX announced merging with NHS Digital into the new Transformation Directorate at NHS England. NHSX's mission will remain the same - to drive the digital transformation of the NHS and social care.

On February 02, 2022, NHS England updated the 2021/22 National Genomic Test Directory for rare and inherited diseases, initially published in October 2021. No new codes were introduced. Amendments were made in 77 codes, including changing the test method, commissioning category, specialist group.

A new multi-agency advisory service (MAAS) is currently under development by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE). This new cross-regulatory service will be a “one-stop-shop” for support, information, and guidance on the regulation and evaluation of AI technologies. The launch of the new service is scheduled for summer 2022.