Commissioning news

The head of the NHS Commissioning Board has hit out at GPs for being ‘out playing golf’ rather than treating patients, as he called for a ‘profound cultural change’ across the NHS.

Exclusive The NHS Commissioning Board is drawing up plans for a national performers’ list, in a move away from ‘local doctor only’ policies developed by trusts to prevent a repeat of the Dr Daniel Ubani out-of-hours case.

LMCs are to heap pressure on senior BMA leaders at their annual conference later this month by debating a motion that ‘reprimands the BMA leadership for taking so long to wake up to the malignant effects’ of the Government’s health reforms.

The NHS Commissioning Board has revealed the names of 35 shadow CCGs who have chosen to be assessed in the first wave of applications for authorisation.

The Government’s expert advisers on vaccination and immunisation have written to the chief medical officer to highlight a series of potential risks to patient care posed by the NHS reforms.

GPs providing large-scale non-GMS services may have to be licensed by Monitor, the head of the regulator has disclosed.

Private companies will be able to bid for contracts to run every aspect of the care of patients with long-term conditions at a series of pilot sites, under a radical new Government scheme.

NHS managers have raised concerns that financial services to be used by every CCG in England will be outsourced to India.

An LMC has claimed a major victory in the fight against draconian inter-practice agreements being imposed on GP practices, after winning a series of key amendments to proposed local contracts.

The NHS Alliance and National Association of Primary Care have formed a single membership organisation for CCGs in conjunction with the NHS Confederation that will represent GP commissioners’ interests in the revamped NHS.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley has revealed he expects all CCGs to be authorised by next April, as the NHS moves forward from the 'big burst of politics' that has now subsided following the passing of the Health and Social Care Bill.

Prominent critics of the Government’s health reforms have been elected to represent the profession on BMA Council.

The NHS Clinical Commissioning Coalition, set up by the NHS Alliance and NAPC, has published its mandate to supporting and championing clinical commissioning groups.

GP commissioners are to be publically ranked on the access they provide to NICE-approved therapies via an ‘innovation scorecard’ due to be published by the Department of Health later this year.

The GPC has called for the re-election of commissioning leaders before next April and the adoption of a new ‘fair commissioning’ charter, in order to counter fears grassroots GPs are being excluded.

Exclusive The headline-grabbing rollout of the Government’s flagship psychological therapies programme has not been funded by new money and comes at the expense of existing mental health initiatives, Pulse can reveal.

Concern over how developing CCGs will performance manage practices and engage with grassroots GPs is set to dominate the upcoming national LMCs conference next month.

Exclusive CCGs will be benchmarked on the quality of care provided in the last few months of life by the relatives of patients who have died, Pulse can reveal.

GP commissioners will have to accept NHS Shared Business Services as their provider of financial services, after the NHS Commissioning Board made it a condition of authorisation.

RCGP chair Dr Clare Gerada has criticised the use of GPs with a special interest to ‘mop up’ hospital activity and has called for a wholesale revamp of the programme to focus on reducing healthcare inequalities.

Click here to see a map of CCGs applying for authorisation in the first wave.