19.02.16
UnitingCare deal collapse cost Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG £10m
The collapse of the UnitingCare partnership deal cost Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group £9.97m and left it in deficit, the group’s outgoing chief clinical officer has found.
In a 9 February report to the CCG governing body, Dr Neil Modha said that the CCG now has a £14.8m deficit, caused partly by £9.97m costs from the termination of its contract with UnitingCare after just eight months, and by costs from contracting directly with replacement providers.
UnitingCare, an NHS consortium, received an £800m contract from the CCG to improve older people’s healthcare and adult community services in October 2014. It began providing services in April 2015, but the contract collapsed in December after UnitingCare said the deal was not financially sustainable.
Dr Modha announced on 22 January: “After four years working for the Clinical Commissioning Group I have decided to step down as chief clinical officer of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG. This will allow me to rebalance and refocus my work and family commitments.”
NHS England has commissioned an investigation into the deal’s collapse.
NHS chief executive Simon Stevens called the review’s results, which are due at the end of the month, “a very important moment for the whole of the NHS”.
The CGC is now in recovery mode and will be implementing a plan to fulfil its agreement with NHS England to reduce the deficit to £8.4m.
The report also says that the CGC is below its agreed performance targets in many areas.
The number of A&E patients being seen within four hours was at 94.1% in December 2015, although this was an improvement from 81.8% in December 2014.
In November 2015 the percentage of diagnostic tests being carried out within six weeks was 97.1%, compared to a 99% standard, and referral to treatment standards were incomplete at all providers apart from Cambridge University Hospital Foundation Trust, necessitating a £2.25m investment to clear backlogs.
In December 2015, only 70.5% of Red 1 ambulance calls and 61.4% of Red 2 calls were responded to within 8 minutes (standard 75%) and only 91.2% of Red 1/2 calls were responded to within 19 minutes (standard 95%).
(Image c. Chris Radburn)