How GPs are winning seats on CCGs

The response for Manchester is incorrect. Manchester has 3 CCGs and certainly North Manchester CCG held contested elections independently scrutinised by the LMC.

Hmmm. our LMC defintely organised elections and not all candidates were succesful, yet we are shown as having 0 posts contested. What's more we have a significant number of single handed, salaried doctors, young folk and even women, and only a minority of the old brigade.

Surely the data does not support the headline "same old faces".

Whether or not there were elections, surely the question is how many of the CCG boards were current or past GP members of PCT/PCG PECs??

If the GPs opted not to undertake formal elections was this because a natural leader was widely supported by engaged GP colleagues, or was there a lack of willing candidates?

The questions raised are healthy (will we get a different approach or practiced PEC behaviours, but on the other hand is it better to have GPs who are experienced in a clinical/managerial split role already).

But I dont think there is any information that helps us here.

This does not representative list. My area is not included, At least 2 of the commissioning grps on Wirral have had elections of all their exec members

In Southampton there were more candidates than posts - I know I acted as one of the returning officers along with one of the LMC's medical directors - and yet the data says 0 - the truth is 2 candidates failed to get elected. As regards "same old faces" out of 6 GPs only 1 is from old PCT executive.

I really don't think this data set supports your assertion. I'm a GP in Cambridgeshire but involved with a CCG in Norfolk which has definitely had elections but you have nothing for Norfolk here.

We can only publish the information that we are given by PCTs. It may not be a true reflection of the picture in your area, but we did approach all PCTs for information on GP elections to CCGs, and this is a faithful representation of that data.

This seems an inaccurate article. The Mid Essex CCG had an LMC organised election after a selection process from an independent team.However the table says we no posts of our 8 contested. I suggest the information is checked more thoroughly

I don't feel you've painted a fair picture here. My consortium is not included in your figures. There were full elections facilitated by an LMC froma different area and not all nominees got elected. This is inaccurate and unbalanced reporting. You should withdraw this story and realise that there is more engagement with the changes than you are reflecting.

I'm Dir GP commissioning East England
Many in our area have had elections and not mentioned in your data
Ok it's PCT data but be sensible to check... U could have called me
We have established GP leaders and some new.... All needed .... And all working hard to make this work
Paul ZR. GP Dir Sha Med Advisor Kings Fund

I could not see Bolton on your list. I understand that there were elections held after some protest. However locum and sessional GPs were not awarded the right to vote. This disempowered about 30% of GPs in the area I believe. What will the outworking of that be I wonder?

Our article was based on information released by PCTs under the Freedom of Information Act. We asked all PCTs for data on the CCG elections in their area, but only 94 were able to respond, which is why there are some gaps, and some CCGs are not represented. We did check extremely carefully that all the data we included in our analysis tallied with the information supplied by PCTs. It would have been impossible for us to arrange a second set of checks with sources independent from PCTs - bearing in mind that we included data on 150 CCGs and nearly 1,000 separate posts. Each PCT, as a statutory NHS organisation, has a dedicated FOI officer with the job of ensuring - over a period of 20 working days - that the information they issue is factually accurate. We've only previously ever had a handful of instances where PCTs have issued incorrect data under FOI and given the amount of data collected, it is highly unlikely that any discrepancies in individual CCGs will have made any material difference to the national picture. However, we don't of course want to be publishing any information that may not be correct. If you believe your CCG's elections have not been correctly described by the FOI response, then please either provide full details here of the correct situation or email me at richard.hoey@ubm.com and I will ensure that the revised information is included in our spreadsheet.

A quick note on our policy for checking information. We would always double-check any information about a CCG before naming it in the main text of an article. In this case, we decided not to name any individual CCGs in the article itself. We do however, again as a matter of policy, always endeavour to publish the raw data from our investigations in order to be as transparent as possible.

Richard Hoey, editor, Pulse

Where is Liverpool?