The NHS Commissioning Board Authority has published the national structure for its 27 local area teams (LATs) and 12 clinical senates.

There are nine LATs in the North of England, three in London, eight in the Midlands and East, and seven in the south of England.

The LAT boundaries are aligned within the senate boundaries, except in three cases where patient flows dictate a modified senate boundary.

The NHS CB comments that this structure is “a sustainable solution” that will establish the Board’s “definitive local presence”.

The area teams will take on direct commissioning for GP services, dental services, pharmacy and some optical services.

Specialised commissioning will be the responsibility of 10 particular LATs, whose boundaries are aligned entirely within the senate boundaries.

London will have a more integrated structure, with three LATs working to support citywide arrangements for direct commissioning and to promote service innovation.

The clinical senates – to be made up of clinicians and other health and social care professionals – will assist CCGs and Health and Wellbeing Boards by providing strategic advice and leadership for local commissioning.

The new Heath Education England body has been launched with a mandate to put health provider organisations in charge of NHS training and education.

HEE, which will become a full statutory organisation in April 2013, will authorise and support the new Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs).

The LEBs will contract local providers to train healthcare staff, with the goal of creating a “demand-led workforce”.

The new DH document World Class Education and Training, for World Class Healthcare outlines the role of HEE as “the new national leadership body for education, training and development of the healthcare workforce”.

The document states that HEE will work in partnership with “employers, higher education, professional bodies and Royal Colleges, service commissioners, regulators, Local Authorities and patients” – but with employers “in the driving seat”.

CCGs and Foundation Trusts, together with their commercial partners, will set the agenda for training the NHS workforce “within a coherent national framework”.

Promoting “the spread of innovation across the NHS” is highlighted as a key national function of HEE, which will work in partnership with the Academic Health Science Networks and clinical senates towards this goal.

HEE will be an autonomous arm’s length body free from DH control. In turn, it will support “freedom for local decision making” by providers.

The SHA clusters will remain accountable for healthcare training until their dissolution in March 2013.