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Controls Assurance covers 22 standards from 'Purchasing and Supply' to 'Fleet and Transport Management'. The standards have helped the NHS successfully embed good risk management practice into its everyday work. However, the many criteria underpinning the standards, central reporting requirements,  verification procedures, and prescriptive guidance has meant that the NHS has considered them an unneccesary burden for some time.

In future, the important elements of the standards will be incorporated into the Standards for Better Health. This will enable NHS organisations to bring together good risk management practice and link it directly to continuous quality improvement and improved patient care.

Sir Nigel Crisp said:

"The decision to end the Controls Assurance Standards follows a Department of Health and Cabinet Office review. We listened to complaints from the NHS that the standards had become too prescriptive and burdensome.

"The bureaucratic 'tick box' approach we currently have, where managing the process can be disproportionately more important than managing the risk, needs to end.

"Rigorous checks and controls will remain in place but the process will now be managed locally, by using the existing Assurance Framework. These changes will reduce the burden on frontline staff, continue the drive to cut NHS bureaucracy whilst at the same time strengthening good risk management practice across the NHS."

Today's announcement follows on from the new Standards for Better Health published last week by the Secretary of State for Health. These will ensure that local management decisions improve the safety and quality of care patients receive and build on the progress that the NHS has made in recent years in managing risk.