North West Commissioning Roadmap

This document shows content from the North West Commissioning Roadmap website as at 07 September 2010 - 20:30.

www.northwestroadmap.org.uk

Commissioning a patient-led NHS

Through commissioning a patient-led NHS, the government aims to create a step-change in the way in which services are commissioned throughout the whole NHS system, allowing more choice, personalised care and empowerment for people to improve their own health. The vision is to move from an NHS service that does things 'to' and 'for' its patients to one that is 'patient-led', where the NHS works with patients to support their health needs.

This will call for some changes in function for primary care trusts and strategic health authorities which, in future, will both concentrate on three main areas:

Promoting health improvement and reducing inequalities.
Securing safe and high quality services for their population.
Emergency planning.

Through:

Better engagement with local clinicians in the design of services.
Faster, universal roll-out of Practice Based Commissioning.
Developing PCTs to support Practice Based Commissioning and take on the responsibility for performance management through contracts with all providers, including those in the independent sector.
Reviewing the functions of the SHAs to support commissioning and contract management.

With PCTs required to become more commissioning led organisations, their role in provision will be reduced to a minimum as they secure services from a range of providers, and they will become subject to the same performance management as any other provider. This will bring a degree of contestability to community-based services, with a greater variety of service offerings and responsiveness to patient needs.

The Department of Health expects PCTs to make arrangements for universal coverage of Practice-based Commissioning, allowing GP practices to take on responsibility for commissioning services that meet the health needs of their local population. Commissioning practices, or groups of practices will have the following main functions:

Designing improved patient pathways.
Working in partnership with PCTs to create community based services that are more convenient for patients.
Responsibility for a budget delegated from the PCT, which covers acute, community and emergency care.
Managing the budget effectively.

For further information, visit:
Commissioning A Patient led NHS