A G E N D A 1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Ian Metcalfe 2 ...

1 IntroductionThe Health and Social Care Act 2012 (the Act) makes changes to the way providers of NHShealth care services will be regulated and gives Monitor new duties and powers. Furtherinformation on our role can be found on our website: www.monitor.gov.ukThis guidance covers the general approach that Monitor will take to using our provider licenceenforcement and competition law powers over health care providers. Parts of it apply to otherswho may be required to supply Monitor with information. This document explains:when Monitor may decide to take action, and what action we might take;how Monitor is likely to decide what kind of sanctions to impose using our powers underthe Act; andthe high-level processes Monitor intends to follow when taking enforcement action.This guidance is designed to provide information about how Monitor generally expects to goabout our enforcement work. The circumstances in some cases may make it appropriate for us todepart from the guidance.We have written this guidance to be as clear as possible, and have tried to use straightforwardlanguage and avoided quoting sections of the Act where possible; this means that, sometimes,we do not use the exact wording used in the Act which would, of course, override this guidance.All of this guidance is relevant to providers of NHS health care services in England. The sectionsthat cover competition law are relevant to all providers of health care services in England. Thesections covering enforcement action under sections 105 and 106 of the Act apply also to otherswhere they may be in breach of a requirement to provide Monitor with information; this applies tothe NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups. This guidance does not coverMonitor's approach to using our enforcement powers under the National Health Service(Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013.As we move from the current framework of regulating NHS foundation trusts through their termsof Authorisation to regulating them through the licence, we are following a similar approach to thatset out in this guidance in ‘translating’ breaches of terms of the Authorisation into appropriateregulatory action under the licence, to take effect as the licence comes into force. We are workingclosely with the NHS foundation trusts affected by this to achieve a smooth transition.Page 5 of 50