Clinically-led Commissioning

What is clinically-led commissioning and why is it happening?

The Coalition Government announced a number of reforms to the NHS in its White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, which was published in July 2010.

The paper set out the government’s intention to put groups of family doctors (called commissioning groups) in control of commissioning care for the people they serve. Under these reforms, PCTs will cease to exist from April 2013 as GPs and a new national NHS Commissioning Board take over the commissioning role, and the responsibility for health improvement (services that promote good health and prevent illness) is handed to local authorities.

Following consultation in autumn 2010, these reforms have been put into the Health and Social Care Bill, which will need approval by Parliament for it to become law. When approval is received, the Bill will become an Act (law). You can follow its passage through parliament on this page.

Update: The Government took the opportunity of a natural break in the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill to pause, listen, reflect and improve (also known as the Listening Exercise). Over an 8-week period, a series of events, led by the NHS Future Forum, heard from a range of people from those working right at the frontline to those who lead the NHS.

On 20 June 2011, the Government published its response to the Listening Exercise outlining how the Bill will be taken forward. You can read the full response here. 

What is the role of NHS Cambridgeshire in clinically-led commissioning?

Over the next 2 years (up until April 2013 when PCTs will be abolished) the commissioning of healthcare will transfer from NHS Cambridgeshire to GPs through the establishment of local commissioning groups of GPs working together.

The role of NHS Cambridgeshire, while still undertaking their statutory and legal duties, is to support the development of the local commissioning groups to take on the responsibility for commissioning health care services.

What is happening in Cambridgeshire?

NHS Cambridgeshire were already moving towards GP commissioning – prior to the Government’s White Paper, and in July 2010 the first pilot commissioning groups were launched. With the national announcements this has now become a priority and in Cambridgeshire there are six local commissioning groups (LCGs):

• Borderline Commissioning Cluster
• Cambridgeshire Association to Commission Health (CATCH)
• Cam Health Integrated Care
• Hunts Care Partnership
• Hunts Health
• Isle of Ely

You can read more about each commissioning group by downloading the factsheets below. 

In the clip below you can see two Cambridgeshire GPs talk about GP Commissioning (the previous name for clinically-led commissioning).