This site is intended for health professionals only


Final list of CCGs published in ‘landmark moment’ for GP commissioning

The Government has revealed the final names and configurations of the 212 CCGs that will be considered for authorisation, in a move hailed as a ‘landmark moment' in the transition to clinical commissioning.

The NHS Commissioning Board has announced details of the sizes, geography (see map, below) and running costs for the new organisations that will replace PCTs in England, with further mergers and reconfigurations now unlikely.

The 212 CCGs cover populations ranging from 68,000 (NHS Corby CCG) to 901,000 (NHS North, East, West Devon CCG), with most groups covering between 150,000 and 300,000.

The board said 86 CCGs will match their local authority boundary, with four matching the boundaries of more than one local authority taken together, and a further 95 sitting wholly within a local authority.

Some 27 CCGs will cross local authority boundaries, with around half of these crossing at the margins, and half crossing boundaries ‘in a more substantial way'.

The list also reveals the additional interim management allowance each CCG will receive, which has been calculated according to how many unregistered patients there are in each locality, and where patients require emergency care.

Dame Barbara Hakin, national director of commissioning development at the NHS Commissioning Board Authority, told Pulse that although many CCGs would resemble PCTs in geography, there would be ‘enormous differences' in how they operate.

‘This is the final list of people to be authorised,' she said.

‘Nobody should underestimate the enormous difference between these membership organisations, and their predecessors which were formed in entirely different ways. The differences are more in how they are how are formed rather than the geographies they cover.'

Dame Barbara said the CCGs moving forward to be authorised fell into two distinct camps; big CCGs with ‘a very strong locality focus' or ‘a number of smaller CCGs that work very collaboratively'.

She said: ‘As a small CCG, you couldn't possibly be successful unless you work collaboratively with your neighbours. As a larger CCG you couldn't be successful without local sensitivities.'

Submissions from the 35 CCGs in wave 1 authorisation are due on 1 July, and the board today also revealed details of proposed applicants for waves two, three and four.

Dame Barbara added: ‘This is a real landmark moment and is a credit to everyone involved in developing CCGs and the new clinically-led commissioning system.'

‘We should not underestimate the hard work that has taken place to get us where we are and the huge progress that has been made across the country.'

 

Click here to view an interactive map of the new CCGs and their indicative running cost allowance.