21.09.16
Major review details ‘challenging goal’ of single Manchester CCG by April 2017
Manchester’s three CCGs are set to join with Manchester City Council after the proposals were approved in an independent assessment by private firm Deloitte.
Deloitte said the joint commissioning plan meant that commissioning in Manchester should be implemented by a single CCG, which would hold a partnership agreement with Manchester City Council to form a single commissioning function (SCF).
At present, Manchester has three separate CCGs – North Manchester, Central Manchester and South Manchester CCGs.
The report said there was “a need to implement this structure by April 2017”, which it admitted was “a challenging goal”.
But the report said that not implementing the joint CCG by then would be “incongruent with the timescales” of Manchester’s other health initiatives – plans to join Manchester’s three hospital trusts into one organisation and to establish a local care organisation for out-of-hospital care.
It recommended introducing a clear implementation plan, including a risk mitigation plan, for the reforms, and immediately developing a shared set of values and behaviours for staff at the council and CCGs.
The report also said that “further changes may be required” after the SCF is established to ensure it is “sufficiently influential” or align it with other public services.
Deloitte said its recommendations were “subject to the final structure for the SCF enabling strong clinical leadership and engagement, mechanisms for neighbourhood/local engagement, and safeguarding defined levels of funding for certain neighbourhoods”.
This should include establishing 12 Neighbourhood Forums to gather intelligence at a local level to inform the commissioning strategy.
Ian Williamson, chief officer of Central Manchester CCG and chair of the city’s joint commissioning executive, said: “Over the last few months, an independent review has been carried out on the scope and options for more formal integrated arrangements. The recommendations are being considered by the CCGs’ boards and Manchester City Council and will be presented to Manchester’s Health and Wellbeing Board in November.
“This process reinforces our commitment to working together for the benefit of the people of this city, so that we can develop a system that is responsive to local need, accountable to local people, and keeps clinical decision-making at the heart of it.”
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