Commentary on Sections Part 3 - Regulation of Health and Adult Social Care Services Licensing procedure Section 88 - Application and grant: NHS foundation trusts
764.This section provides that Monitor must treat an NHS foundation trust in existence at commencement of this section, or an NHS trust which becomes a foundation trust at a later date, as having made an application and met the criteria for a licence. As a result of this, the foundation trusts will not have to make a licence application. Foundation trusts will however still be regarded as applicants for the purpose of the power to include special conditions in an applicant’s licence under section 95. Organisations have to go through a robust authorisation process in order to gain foundation trust status under Chapter 5 of Part 2 of the NHS Act. The automatic granting of licences to foundation trusts will limit the regulatory burden on them.