30.03.16
Delegated GP commissioning expected for nearly all CCGs by 2018
Full delegation of primary medical services has been approved for 51 more CCGs this year and is expected to affect nearly all CCGs by 2018.
In a paper put before the NHS England board ahead of a meeting tomorrow, Ian Dodge, national director of the NHS Commissioning Strategy, says that 63 CCGs already took forward fully delegated primary services in 2015-16, and a further 51 have been improved for complete delegation from 1 April.
Back in December, NHS England authorised the CCGs to take on delegated responsibility for commissioning GP services in an effort to improve out-of-hospital services. This means from April 2016 about half of all CCGs will have delegated responsibility.
Last year a further 87 CCGs also implemented joint commissioning with their local NHS England team.
The paper says: “At the current pace of change, we expect nearly all CCGs to have taken on delegated arrangements by 2017-18.”
It says that delegation to CCGs is crucial for implementing the Five Year Forward view, which a recent survey from Grant Thornton warned many organisations are struggling to introduce.
The paper says that the benefits of delegated commissioning include increasing the local appetite to develop primary care services and new models of care, enabling the development of a joined-up vision, increasing clinical leadership and public involvement in primary care commissioning, and improving CCGs’ relationships with local stakeholders.
Dodge also noted that delegation of primary medical care functions brings an increased need for “very robust arrangements for managing conflicts of interest”. Back in November 2014, it was announced that a ‘strengthened’ approach to dealing with conflicts of interest would be put in place when CCGs took on an increased role in the commissioning of primary care services.
At last year’s NHS Expo, Stefanie Rutherford, senior co-commissioning manager at NHS England, noted that despite some early challenges primary care co-commissioning was progressing well.
In a separate item on the agenda, the board will discuss increasing localised maternity care provision.
The CCGs who will implement fully delegated services on 1 April are:
- Northumberland
- Darlington
- Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees
- South Tees
- Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale
- Tameside and Glossop
- North Manchester
- Central Manchester
- Stockport
- South Manchester
- Trafford
- Salford
- Bolton
- Bury
- Eastern Cheshire
- Vale Royal
- South Cheshire
- Leeds North
- Leeds West
- Leeds South and East
- Greater Huddersfield
- Doncaster
- Sheffield
- Wyre Forest
- Redditch and Bromsgrove
- Walsall
- Great Yarmouth and Waveney
- Corby
- Sutton
- Merton
- Wandsworth
- Kingston
- Richmond
- Oxfordshire
- Aylesbury Vale
- North and West Reading
- South Reading
- Newbury and District
- Wokingham
- Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley
- Swale
- Canterbury and Coastal
- West Kent
- Ashford
- Hastings and Rother
- Coastal West Sussex
- North West Surrey
- North East Hampshire and Farnham
- Isle of Wight
- Dorset
- Southampton City