By Richard Johnstone | 20 May 2014
Clinical commissioning groups in the NHS have today said they must be given a greater role in the commissioning of primary care if there is to be a ‘transformation’ of local health services.
The NHS Clinical Commissioners group (NHSCC), which represents 211 CCGs formed after the government abolished primary care trusts last April, said changes were needed to ensure their plans could be implemented.
Under the government’s reforms, CCGs, which are made up of local GPs and other professionals, are responsible for commissioning services including those from hospitals. However, NHS England, the national body established by the Health and Social Care Act, has responsibility for commissioning GP services themselves, as well as other primary care such as dentistry.
In a statement today, the NHSCC said these arrangements do not give local groups the required scope to change all local health services.
Leaving CCGs out of primary care decisions puts clinically-led strategies for local health improvements at risk, the group said.
‘Building a successful NHS for the future that delivers high-quality care for patients, will need to have strong and effective out-of-hospital community-based services. Achieving this requires highly effective commissioning that integrates care across primary, acute and community services. This will not happen while different people are commissioning different parts of the system,’ the statement said.
As CCGs worked with both NHS England and local authorities across the health system, they were ideally placed to join up the system to make informed decisions on behalf of their populations, the group said. Lay members in CCGs, as well as local Health and Wellbeing boards and NHS England area teams, would ensure any conflict of interests were managed.
New NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has already said he will look at giving CCGs the opportunity to exercise more powers to co-commission primary care. This was a welcome move in the right direction, NHSCC concluded.
