The NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board (BSW ICB), NHS Dorset ICB and NHS Somerset ICB are working closely together as a ‘cluster’.

To support this collaboration, the ICBs have formed a joint committee under sections 65Z5 and 65Z6 of the NHS Act 2006. This joint committee is known as the Cluster Board. Its Terms of Reference set out the remit of the committee. In summary, the Boards of the NHS BSW, NHS Dorset and NHS Somerset ICBs have delegated to the Cluster Board decision-making with regards to:

  • Strategy and planning.
  • Capital and revenue spend in line with the Standing Financial Instructions and Scheme of Financial Delegations.
  • Service commissioning and contracting in line with the Standing Financial Instructions and Scheme of Financial Delegations.
  • Oversight of the ICBs’ operations, incl. the competent and prudent management of activities and resources; sound planning, and performance monitoring; and compliance with statutory and regulatory obligations.

Find out more about the Cluster Board members.


Cluster Board meetings

Every other month, the Cluster Board meets in public and meetings are typically held virtually via MS Teams.

Dates, times and papers for each meeting are published on the Cluster Board meetings and events pages.

The meetings are live streamed. You can watch them live or catch up on a recording on NHS Dorset - YouTube.

 

Questions for the Cluster Board

You can submit questions to the Cluster Board. Please send your questions to bswicb.clustergovernance@nhs.net no later than seven working days before the Cluster Board meeting.

The Cluster Board will respond to your questions at the start of the meeting, and we will publish these responses after the meeting.

Please be aware that the Cluster Board will not consider questions that are:

  • Defamatory, offensive or related to individual members of staff
  • Confidential or sensitive
  • Deemed to be overtly political
  • Substantially the same as a question that has previously been answered
  • An individual complaint or matter relating to an individual’s care or treatment (please see the ICBs’ websites for how you can make complaints, submit Freedom of Information requests, or Subject Access Requests)