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CCGs set to have more ‘power and control’ over primary care services, says NHS chief exec

The DH is to look at how CCGs can have more ‘power and control' over the commissioning of primary care services, NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson has revealed.

Speaking at today's NAPC annual conference in Birmingham, he said: ‘Although its quite rightly the responsibility of NHS Commissioning Board to commission primary care across the system of the NHS as a whole, we want to see innovative ways of working with CCGs to give you more power and control in relation to primary care commissioning. We want to see how we can embed the activities of the NHSCB into the CCGs' He added: ‘It's a very important lever for the CCGs operating collectively to have more control over the commissioning of primary care.'

In an exclusive interview with Practical Commissioning, NAPC chair, Dr Johnny Marshall, said: ‘Even if CCGs are not holding the contracts (for primary care) they should absolutely have a key role in developing services, helping to support improvement of performance, helping to shape the way that services are provided in general practice as a centre to the rest of primary care but also how that fits in with all the other health sectors and community care. So I think it's a really important area for CCGs to get into. As soon as you as a CCG start looking at how you're going to influence the health of the population you end up identifying that primary care and general practice in particular has an absolute key role to play, particularly around long term conditions.'