NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups across the region will share managers.

Swindon, Wiltshire and Bath and North East Somerset CCGs will share a single management team. But the organisations, which are responsible for commissioning and paying for the healthcare for hundreds of thousands of people living in the region, stepped short of a formal merger.

The new structure would incorporate the functions of the area’s NHS Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, which currently sets and oversees the strategy on things like the use of digital technology.

Yesterday, members of Swindon CCG’s governing body approved moves to merge the management teams. A paper will be brought to the committee next month setting out how the new governance arrangements might look for the new-look organisations.