Large ICB presses on with plans for hospital trusts to lead ‘neighbourhood health service’

Another hospital trust in London has been appointed by a large ICB to lead the new ‘neighbourhood health service’ in its area.

Last month South East London ICB appointed four hospital trusts – not GPs – to lead neighbourhood programmes across its footprint, following the publication of the 10-year plan.

It approved partnerships between primary and secondary care, called ‘neighbourhood health service integrators’, in four of its six boroughs.

Now the ICB has confirmed that another trust, King’s College Hospital FT, has been chosen to lead the service in Bromley, meaning that five of its six areas will be led by trusts.

Papers presented to the ICB last month show that the trusts have been chosen as ‘lead NHS organisations within the partnership’ given their ‘size, scale, maturity and local footprint’ and will hold the funding.

They also showed that the ICB is planning to spend £250,000 per integrator to ‘support early development and implementation’.

It comes after last week the BMA warned that plans for trusts to take on neighbourhood contracts could ‘risk bankruptcy for GPs’.

Following the plan’s publication last month, GPs and experts told Pulse that the proposals could mean that funding will mostly be channelled into large-scale providers and that traditional practices will be left with fewer resources.

It remains unclear whether the new neighbourhood contracts will sit alongside GMS contracts or in their stead, and who will be responsible for negotiating them.

South East London ICB said: ‘The One Bromley Partnership, set up as a neighbourhood provider group with members from the One Bromley Executive, will serve as the integrator for Bromley Place. King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will host the arrangement.’

Greenwich, the last area within South East London ICB still putting arrangements in place, will confirm appointment of its integrator ‘in the coming weeks’.

South East London ICB chief executive officer Andrew Bland said: ‘We are making great strides towards delivering neighbourhood health services that prioritise local communities.

‘With integrators now in place across five of our six boroughs, I am proud to say we are close to completing the local infrastructure needed to support neighbourhood working across south east London, with Greenwich due to follow suit imminently.’

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Professor Clive Kay said: ‘We are pleased to support this important development, which builds on our existing partnership with One Bromley.

‘As the host organisation, we will help support effective neighbourhood health services, which offer real benefits for patients, as well as local healthcare providers.’

Health secretary Wes Streeting has previously argued that as part of a radical reform of the NHS, acute trusts should be able to provide primary care services and that ‘successful GPs’ should be ‘able to run local hospitals’.

However, following the publication of the plan, NHS England’s primary care director had said that hospital trusts will be invited to take on new contracts for neighbourhood services where GPs ‘are not stepping up’.

And the RCGP recently opposed plans for acute and community trusts to run general practice.