The NHS Commissioning Assembly was born out of a vision to develop a community of commissioning leaders – the ‘one team’ that would work together to focused on improving outcomes for patients.

Initially established in November 2012, the Commissioning Assembly has focused on bringing clinical leaders – including Clinical Commissioning Group clinical leads and National Clinical Directors – together with NHS England Area Team Directors and National Directors to share their experience, develop solutions to issues and generate ideas to improve patient outcomes.

The plan has been developed following an assessment of the 4 critical themes of organisational effectiveness: performance; efficiency and innovation; capability; strategic risk and leadership of change. It sets out where the department is currently, what it has achieved, where it needs to be in future and the improvements that the department needs to make to get there.