Maria Caulfield: Local systems and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for monitoring and responding to demands placed on general practitioners and their teams. The GP Contract states that each practice is required to provide primary medical services to meet the reasonable needs of their registered patients. General practices are independent businesses whose services are contracted by...
Lord Kamall: ...’ power to disclose information that is personal data. I hope I will be able to clarify some of the intentions. New Section 14Z61, inserted by Clause 20, recreates the section that applies to CCGs, which sets out the circumstances in which CCGs are permitted to disclose information obtained in the exercise of their functions. The clause in question already restricts ICBs’ powers to...
Maria Caulfield: No recent assessment has been made. Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) monitor general practitioner practices’ compliance with contractual requirements and any risks to patient safety and service provision. If a practice considers that it cannot safely take on any more patients, it may close its patient list, provided this is approved by the CCG. NHS England and NHS Improvement provide...
Lord Kamall: ...the Royal College of General Practitioners for pushing us on this and reminding us that, as we move to ICBs, we should make sure that primary care is not the poor relation. In moving to ICBs from CCGs, where GPs and primary medical services have played a huge role, we have to ensure that these are not dominated by a few large trusts. We understand and continue to recognise the importance...
Baroness Brinton: ..., the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, said that “ICBs will be required to have regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines in their provision of services, as CCGs currently are … NHS England will continue to support commissioners of palliative and end-of-life care services through their palliative and end-of-life care strategic clinical networks....
Lord Kamall: ..., and I hope that will go some way to satisfying concerns. On guidance, I am able to reassure your Lordship’s House that NHS England’s regional teams are having ongoing discussions with CCGs and will deal with ICB leaders about the potential membership of the ICB board on establishment. These discussions are focused on ensuring that the board will be effective in discharging the...
Edward Argar: NHS England is responsible for funding allocations to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). This process is independent of the Government and the underlying allocation formula is informed by an estimation of the relative health needs of local areas, based on factors statistically associated with higher or lower need per head for NHS services. Further cost adjustments are also applied to...
Edward Argar: ...2020 203,949 September 2021 212,922 Source: NHS Digital Workforce Statistics Note: The total number of FTE nurses does not match the total numbers of FTE nurses in all NHS trusts and CCGs published by NHS Digital. Not all NHS trusts are or have always held foundation trust status. Nurses employed in NHS trusts which did not hold foundation trust status at the point of data collection...
Maggie Throup: ...link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/si tes/52/2021/12/C1488-letter-next-steps-for-the-nhs-covid-19- vaccine-deployment.pdf This guidance highlighted the priority for all CCGs to ensure additional capacity to maximise throughput and efficiency at existing sites, opening additional vaccination sites and extending opening times. NHS England and NHS Improvement...
Maria Caulfield: Currently clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) commission the majority of health care provision in their locality, as they have the knowledge and experience to arrange the services that best meet the needs of their populations. National Health Service-funded treatment should be commissioned by CCGs with due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) fertility...
Edward Argar: NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers. Data on the National Health Service (NHS) workforce is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). ESR is the HR and payroll system for...
Gillian Keegan: ...planned spend for the Vale of York CGC’s on mental health services in 2021/22 is £79.3 million. This represents 16.9 per cent of the CCG’s overall allocation. The total planned spend for all CCGs in England on mental health services in 2021/22 is £12.55 billion. This represents 14.8 per cent of CCGs’ overall allocation.
Maria Caulfield: ...people for commissioning locally are crucial. Integrated care boards will be statutory from 1 July, and will have accountable officers. I strongly urge colleagues to speak to their ICBs or CCGs, because there are differences in practice across the country. Some commission dentistry really well, some not so well. Very often, if the money allocated to dentistry is not ringfenced, and if it...
James Sunderland: ...Finally, I want to welcome Dr Priya Singh, who is the new chief executive of the Frimley integrated care system and who I met yesterday to discuss this issue. Time is short but, in brief, local NHS CCGs spent £12 billion in 2020-21 on mental health support. NHS England spent a further £2 billion, making a total of just over £14 billion. That is great, but I was horrified to learn that...
Edward Argar: ...Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics, including information on staff turnover. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers. The following table shows the annual number of HCHS doctors, excluding doctors in training, who have left the...
Baroness Brinton: ...and Hemel Hempstead with a completely new one, which it was eventually agreed would be in Watford. Given the debate that we have just had on configuration, it is interesting that the councils, CCGs and other stakeholders worked closely and cross-party with the trust, with a new vision for hospital provision in our region. About 15 years ago, capital expenditure approval was given, and...
Lord Stevens of Birmingham: ..., these proposals are undesirable. They would confuse and obscure accountability for the quality and safety of patient care. The Court of Appeal held in Nettleship v South Tyneside and Sunderland CCGs in 2020 that there is no duty to include in a public consultation options which local commissioners deem to be unviable, unrealistic or unsustainable. Yet Schedule 6 would allow the Secretary...
Lord Kamall: The Secretary of State cannot issue a direction to CCGs or ICBs on any of this using this power. We have been clear that direction cannot be given in relation to drugs, medicines or on treatments that NICE has recommended or issued guidance on. I gave the example of where we want this guidance—with the draft guidelines published for ICBs. The Secretary of State would be able to intervene...
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: ...looks as though it is going to be very large, will be the legitimiser of those discussions and tensions. Still, it is a bit of a strange beast. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, raised the issue of CCGs and the fact that, because they were essentially membership organisations of GPs, they could not do the nitty-gritty of managing the contracts, which in the end was kind of half-devolved down...
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: ...in July 2021 restated NHSE guidance, but it has not been followed by clinical commissioning groups. A survey done recently by UK thyroid charities, to which I pay huge tribute, says that 44% of CCGs have not fully adopted the national guidelines or are wrongly interpreting them. What are we to do? What is the situation here, where we have clear guidance that is not being followed? This...
