The time to set up GP consortia is now

GP commissioners and PCTs should get their GP consortia up and running as soon as possible, according to Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance.

This was his message whilst addressing 180 future GP commissioning leaders in the North East, at the NHS Alliance/APEX North East PBC Regional Event. Delegates included GPs, practice managers, PBC leads, cluster managers, LMC members and PCT managers.

“GP commissioners and PCTs need to support each other,” explained Dr Dixon, “The new set up will work best where there are arrangements for strong partnerships between GP consortia and PCTs, which will be invaluable in terms of sharing their skills and expertise in how to cope with budgets, as well as statutory and other management responsibilities.

“Time is also of essence. We need to get this off the ground as quickly as possible. As with flying, we will need many flying hours before we are confident and prepared to go solo in 2013.”

Dr Dixon also pointed out the importance of getting the details of future commissioning arrangements right and overcome the dead hand of bureaucracy.

He said: “It will be crucial, for instance, to ensure we have proper governance, especially where GP commissioning decisions might advantage providing practices within a GP consortium and fuel self interest.