By Susan McNulty
The management allowance for GP consortia looks set to be revealed in the next NHS Operating Framework, out in December.
Speaking at today's National Association of Primary Care annual conference in Birmingham, NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson, said that was the ‘likelihood' and the target DH staff were working towards.
Sir David said: ‘People are very anxious about what the number will be and I understand that and we are working very hard.'
‘The likelihood is it will be in the operating framework out in December. Then we will know what the magic number is and it's all our interests to know what that number is.'
In an exclusive interview with Practical Commissioning following his presentation, Sir David said the DH was looking at administrative costs across the health service, not only for commissioning, and planned to reduce them by a third.
In his conference speech, Sir David said it would not be the ‘brilliance of vision' that would define success but how the transformation was managed.
He warned against ‘self-appointed GPs in rooms with maps' creating consortia boundaries as these would simply lead to a replica of PCTs.
The focus instead should be on improving quality and focusing on outcomes and the ‘purpose' over the next two years. On forming consortia, he said GPs should ‘go slow'.
He said: ‘If we lose control of the system now we won't have budgets to inherit.'
Sir David added that had PBC or world class commissioning continued for another two years, it would not have achieved the ‘step change required by just carrying on'.
NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson Click here for more live coverage from the NAPC conference NAPC conference
