MIAA is a member of the Internal Audit Network (TIAN) which comprises the seven NHS internal audit consortiums and in-house teams operating in England. These organisations collaborate across a number of areas to leverage their collective knowledge and expertise and drive efficiency and effectiveness. The monthly insight report highlights key publications and is intended as a useful update and reference tool. This report is produced by TIAN and shared by MIAA. 

NHS England - Medium term planning framework: delivering change together 2026/27 -2028/29

This three-year roadmap sets out the NHS’s plan to return to meeting its constitutional standards on elective care, with the aim of having 2.5 million fewer patients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2029. Read more

NHS Providers have summarised the new planning framework’s key points in a briefing available here

For information

NHS England - NHS cost recovery: Information for NHS organisations who need to make and recover hospital charges from overseas visitors

This guidance gives advice on charging overseas visitors (an overseas visitor is defined as someone who is not ordinarily resident in the UK) for some NHS services, as required by law under the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 (‘the charging regulations’). Read more

For information of all NHS providers

NHS England - Identifying restrictive practice

This resource has been developed to raise awareness among staff of the range of restrictive practices that are used within mental health inpatient services and their impact on patients. Read more

For information of all mental health trusts providing inpatient services

NHS England - Culture of care standards

This guidance sets out a culture of care standard for mental health inpatient services. Three new approaches support practical application for:

• autism-informed inpatient care 
• culturally competent inpatient care
• trauma-informed and harm-aware inpatient care

The co-produced guidance sets out the culture of care everyone, including people who use services, families, carers and staff, want to experience in mental health inpatient settings, and supports providers to realise this.  

The standards apply to all NHS-funded mental health inpatient service types, including those for people with a learning disability and autistic people, as well as specialised mental health inpatient services such as mother and baby units, secure services, and children and young people’s mental health inpatient services. Read more

For adoption by all NHS-funded mental health providers

NHS England - Tackling modern slavery in NHS procurement

This guidance for procurement professionals has been updated post-consultation.  The guidance sets out how regulations should be followed, provides examples of the scope of the regulations and details steps that organisations should take based on the assessed level of modern slavery risk. Read more

For application by all undertaking NHS procurement

NHS England - Research matters: enabling and sustaining a research-positive culture for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals

This guide suggests actions executive chief nurses can take to help their organisation become a research-positive healthcare organisation with research sustainably embedded in everyday practice and professional decision-making. Read more

For information

Care Quality Commission (CQC) - Better regulation, better care: consultation on improving how we assess and rate providers

This consultation is about the CQC's proposals to evolve and improve their approach to assessing and rating health and care providers. It sets out: how the CQC proposes to develop their frameworks and guidance for assessing providers; and how they propose to change their methods for inspecting, assessing and awarding ratings to health and care services. The consultation closes at 5pm on 11 December. Read more

Submissions to the consultation to be made by 11th December

CQC - The state of health care and adult social care in England 2024/25

The State of Care is the CQC's annual assessment of health care and social care in England. The report looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve. This report finds that demand for services is increasing across a health and social care system that is already under severe pressure – affecting how easily people can access care and the quality of care they receive. The report also highlights longstanding inequalities with some groups of people – including older people, people with dementia, people with a learning disability, and those with complex mental health needs – more likely to struggle to navigate services, often meaning their families and unpaid carers carry increasing burdens. Read more

For information

Mind - The big mental health report 2025

This report finds that public attitudes towards mental health and people with mental health problems are getting worse, with more than one in ten unwilling to live next to someone who has been mentally unwell – even if they have since recovered. It warns that an increasingly negative public discourse about mental health, from politicians and in the media, risks undoing the progress in attitudes and stigma achieved in recent years. Read more

For information

Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) - Right-touch regulation

The PSA helps to protect the public by improving the regulation and registration of people who work in health and care. Its oversight involves reviewing the work of the regulators of health and care professionals and accrediting organisations that register health and care practitioners working in unregulated occupations. Right-touch regulation is the approach the PSA applies in its work, and encourages others to adopt it as well. It involves assessing the level of risk of harm to the public and deciding on the most proportionate and effective response to mitigate that risk – whether through regulation or other means. Read more

For information

National Audit Office - Costs of clinical negligence

Clinical negligence is a breach of a legal duty of care which directly caused harm to the patient. This report finds that the cost of settling clinical negligence claims has more than tripled in last two decades. Cost increases in the last ten years were largely due to a small number of high-value claims. It also discovers there is a risk that government may be paying twice in some cases: first by settling a claim, and then again by paying for further treatment as patients could go on to use publicly funded health or social care services, despite the settlement being paid with the assumption that they will use the private sector. Read more

For information

NHS Confederation - Reforming financial flows: lessons from systems

This report contains guidance, case studies and key principles to support designing and implementing new payment mechanisms. The 10 Year Health Plan has set out the need for payment reform and the requirement for integrated care boards, as strategic commissioners, to design and implement innovative payments mechanisms. The report argues that implementing these new financial flows will challenge long-established principles and ways of working in NHS finance, requiring a shift in mindset across the whole sector. Read more

For information

NHS Providers - Embedding quality: principles for a national quality management system

Making the shift from reactive quality improvement to proactive quality management could be transformational for patient care and staff experience, and may play a crucial role in preventing avoidable harm. As a tool to enable this shift, there is increased interest in the potential of approaches such as quality management systems (QMSs), which extend beyond quality improvement to include management of other key components of quality – planning, control and assurance. This briefing explores how trust-wide QMSs can support improvement and what trusts need from national support to implement and embed them effectively. Read more

For information

NHS Providers - Investing in the NHS: empowering the sector to drive productivity, renewal and growth

This report says years of underinvestment and challenges around capital spending have left the NHS with facilities that are too often outdated and unfit for purpose. It shows how the health service could unlock billions of pounds of extra funding for NHS buildings and equipment, transforming care for patients, reviving high streets and delivering key worker housing. Read more

For information

NHS Providers - Improving health literacy in the NHS

This guide explores what is meant by health literacy, the benefits of applying health literacy interventions, recommendations for trust board members, and case studies from five trusts that have effectively embedded interventions. Read more

For information

House of Commons Library - The 10 Year Health Plan for England

This briefing provides an overview of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025. It also includes a summary of some of the key stakeholder responses and analysis, and updates on implementation. Read more

For information

HFMA – Financial reporting watching brief 2025/26

2025/26 is a relatively quiet year for financial reporting changes. This briefing identifies the changes to accounting standards as well as public sector reporting requirements. The 2025 version of this briefing highlights updates on HM Treasury's timetable for implementing IFRS 18 and 19 in the public sector, the Financial Reporting Council's final report on the NHS audit market and changes to the GAM and FT ARM. Read more

For information

Disclaimer: This briefing paper is intended to highlight recent developments and issues within the NHS that may be of interest to non-executive directors, lay members and NHS managers. It is not exhaustive and TIAN cannot be held responsible for any omission.