HEE merges with NHS England

Health Education England (HEE) will be coming together with NHS England to create a new organisation on 1 April 2023. This means that NHS England will be taking on responsibility for all activities that were previously undertaken by HEE. 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.

NHS Digital has already merged with NHS England on 1 February 2023. HEE systems, functions, process and structures will continue to operate as normal with contracts automatically transferring to NHS England with the terms and conditions going on unchanged.

Why these changes are happening

The NHS is being 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 

By coming together, we 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 immediate changes if you currently use HEE’s services. The ways that you contact us and the services on offer will remain the same.

Contracts with Health Education England

The merger will be 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 affect the transfer of your contract. 

We will write to all HEE’s suppliers to tell them how to change their billing systems. 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 HEE 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

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