Sir, the Department of Health in England, in its review of arm's-length bodies – Liberating the NHS: Report of the arm's-length review – announced its intention to abolish the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) as an arm's length body.

In addition to its patient safety responsibilities and commissioning confidential enquiries in the field of patient safety, NPSA manages two distinct operating divisions: the National Clinical Assessment Service (NCAS) and the National Research Ethics Service (NRES). I thought, as Associate Director for Dentistry at NCAS, it may be helpful if I wrote briefly about the recommendations in respect of our service. In summary, NCAS continues into the future and will be expected to work towards self-funding over two to three years. We have undertaken some work on how our business model will have to adapt to reflect the changes in public sector policy and to meet the needs of the diverse professions, jurisdictions and sectors we now serve. In the interim, it is likely that we will move to a hosted arrangement to enable this work to move forward.

A central driver for NCAS is the continued need for our expertise as the reforms to professional governance move forward, indeed the past year has seen NCAS' busiest times in recent years.

NCAS at present remains free to access at the point of delivery and looks forward to continuing to work with dentists into the future.