Today the Health Select Committee added its weight to the concerns expressed about the government’s proposed structural reforms to the NHS.
The Committee is right to highlight the risk these reforms pose to delivering on the key priority facing the NHS in the period ahead. Finding up to £20 billion in productivity improvements to maintain services and improve the quality of care is going to be quite a challenge.
The King’s Fund supports the development of GP-led commissioning and welcomes the news that more than 140 groups of GPs have come forward to join the government’s pathfinder scheme. Nevertheless - and this is stressed by the Committee - GP consortia must also include input from other health professionals.
This should be a key consideration in evaluating the pathfinder schemes. As the report points out, consortia must find effective ways of involving patients and members of the public in commissioning decisions.
The Committee’s comments about the role of PCT clusters are also important. They will play a central part in managing the transition to GP-led commissioning and delivering the efficiency gains needed.
Where consortia are not ready to assume the full range of their responsibilities, the government’s April 2013 deadline should be relaxed and PCT clusters left in place for as long as they are needed. The Committee has raised a number of important technical issues about the development of GP-led commissioning which it intends to keep under review throughout its future work.
We welcome its continued involvement in the development of policy in this area. I hope the government will take its recommendations seriously.
Chris Ham is chief executive of The King's Fund
