SEVERAL Sussex health groups still “require improvement”.

The Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford received the warning in the NHS England assurance ratings published earlier this week.

But this does show an improvement for the group, which was branded as “inadequate” in last year’s ratings.

Each year NHS England assess CCGs across the country on a set of criteria for the groups as part of the Improvement and Assessment Framework, allowing the organisation to see if advances have been made.

Several other CCGs in Sussex also moved from “inadequate” to “requires improvement”, including Crawley, Hastings and Rother and Horsham and Mid Sussex.

This means that now there are no CCGs in Sussex which are rated “inadequate”.

Coastal West Sussex saw the most dramatic upturn, moving from inadequate to good in the last year.

Adam Doyle, chief executive for the Sussex and East Surrey CCGs, said: “This progress reflects the hard work that has been undertaken to improve performance, quality and safety of services, governance, leadership and financial management, as well as the greater joined-up working we have been moving towards across our CCGs.

“We feel these ratings are a fair reflection of the improvement journey we are on and we recognise that there is still work to do in a number of areas that need further improvement.”

High Weald Lewes Havens CCG was still found to “require improvement”.

Brighton and Hove CCG was given a “good” rating, maintaining its score from the year before.

CCGs were created in 2012 after the Health and Social Care Act.

They are an elected governing body defined as “clinically-led statutory NHS bodies responsible for the planning and commissioning of health care services for their area”.

CCGs are responsible for two thirds of the total NHS England budget of £79.9billion.

There are currently 191 CCGs in England.

Each one is responsible for the health of people living within its designated area.