Board members of NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board (NCL ICB) will meet on Tuesday 30 September 2025 to consider recommendations for proposed changes to children’s surgical services.
This decision follows an extensive public consultation undertaken last year by NCL ICB and NHS England Specialised Commissioning under the NCL Start Well Programme, on proposals to change the way some surgical services for young children are delivered.
The Start Well programme has involved several years of partnership working and significant engagement with patients, staff and partners to review and improve the quality and outcomes of services. Our collective ambition as a health and care system is to give babies and children living in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington the best possible start in life and improve health outcomes.
There are opportunities for us to improve the quality of children’s surgical services, for both planned and emergency care, and provide a better experience for young children, their families, carers, and our staff.
Following the public consultation, we published a full independent report detailing the responses we received along with an executive summary report.
Having considered this feedback and suggested alternative options, we then carried out further engagement activity during June and July this year focused specifically on our updated proposal for emergency surgery for young children. The feedback we received from parents, residents and clinicians during this additional phase of engagement has been independently analysed.
The Board papers are now available to download from our NCL ICB Board of Members meetings webpage and include a detailed decision-making business case, along with the independent report from the additional engagement activity and the latest integrated impact assessment.
The decision-making meeting will be held in public. Details about how to register to attend the meeting in person, or to request a link to view a livestream of the meeting, are available on our NCL ICB Board of Members meetings webpage
The outcome of the decision-making meeting, including next steps will be published on the Start Well webpage.