Follow the money: financial incentives for CCGs

If you’re curious about what incentives might be guiding the new health system, this update from the NHS Commissioning Board provides some essential context:

“Financial incentives (quality premium) will be paid to all CCGs that improve or achieve on four national measures and three locally-agreed measures, set with Health and Wellbeing Boards. National measures include: potential years of life lost from causes considered amenable to healthcare; avoidable emergency admissions; the friends and family test; and incidence of healthcare associated infections.”

The ‘friends and family test’ is about whether individuals would recommend services to friends – in other words, a form of customer satisfaction. You can read concerns about it here, and analysis here.

Continue reading

Scrutinising the new health system? Health and wellbeing boards

There’s a quick guide to health and wellbeing boards on the Department of Health website, explaining how they are intended to guide spending decisions under the new health system, where clinical commissioning groups control Ā£60bn of spending. Some highlights for those interested in the scrutiny role: Continue reading

The role of local councils in scrutinising clinical commissioning

A parliamentary written answer from Anna Soubry MP provides some useful information for those interested in the lines of accountability of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).

In short, this involves consulting with the local authority’s health and wellbeing board, which in turn can report to the NHS Commissioning Board if it is not happy (which can in turn take action). The health and wellbeing board is also accountable itself to the local authority’s scrutiny committee, for which you can find details by adapting this search for your own local council site.

Here’s Anna Soubry’s answer in full: Continue reading