HEE merges with NHS England

Health Education England has merged with NHS England. This means that NHS England has assumed responsibility for all activities previously undertaken by Health Education England. This includes planning, recruiting, educating and training the health workforce, ensuring that the healthcare workforce has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours in place to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement to patients and the public.

This follows the merger of NHS Digital with NHS England on the 1 February 2023. The systems and services, functions, processes and structures of Health Education England will continue to operate as normal, and contracts will automatically transfer to NHS England, with terms and conditions unchanged. 

Why these changes are happening

The NHS has been redesigned around the creation of integrated care systems, and this requires a redesign at the centre of the NHS in England.

People, data and technology are crucial to the ongoing evolution of our NHS.

By working together in these key areas, we will support and enable local systems to:

• work in more efficient ways
• improve diagnosis and treatment
• improve services 

This merger will reduce duplication, bringing the NHS’s people, skills, digital, data and technology expertise together into one organisation. This will help us to collaborate more effectively and allow local organisations to benefit from a wide range of specialist support and expertise.

Users of Health Education England’s services

There will be no changes for those who currently use Health Education England’s services. The ways that you contact them and the services on offer will remain the same.

Contracts with Health Education England

The merger was completed by a statute change and any contracts that are subject to UK law will transfer automatically to NHS England under those regulations.

You do not need to take any action to effect the transfer of your contract. 

We have written to all of Health Education England’s suppliers to tell them how to change their billing systems. If you have not received that letter, if you hold any contracts that are not subject to UK law with us, or have any other queries about your contract, contact commercialcontracts@hee.nhs.uk.

If you have a contract for Health Education England to supply you with a service then this remains valid and the contract will automatically transfer to NHS England.

Doctors and dentists in postgraduate training, students and learners

If you need to contact Health Education England in relation to your training and education you should continue to do so through existing channels, your Training Programme Director, Head of School or usual contacts. If you are unsure you can find more details on our contact us page.