Contents
Headline news:
Urgent and Emergency Care Review
Winter planning:
NHS 111 Winter Preparedness
Standard Operating Procedures
Commissioning Assembly news:
Shape the future- let us have your views
Framework of Excellence in Clinical Commissioning: For CCGs
Join the NHS Commissioning Assembly on the website and twitter
Monthly newsletter
Strategic issues:
Commissioning support – make, share or buy?
NHS Standard Contract 2014/15
Equality Delivery System refresh
Interactive Commissioning for Value tools
New EU Directive on public procurement – NHS European Office briefing
Ways of working survey
Public Health Functions Agreement 2014/15
Supporting CCGs to build capability to lead transformational change – a free one-day ‘taster’ workshop for CCG leaders in London on 10 December 2013
Operational issues:
Parity of esteem knowledge portals
Making health and social care information accessible
Implementation support for Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) Release 2
The seventh Information Governance Bulletin
Events and campaigns:
Specialised Health Services – scoping event
Invitation to apply for Membership of Clinical Senate Assembly
Recruiting now – Patient and Public Voice representatives for members of national Patient Safety Committees
Recruiting now – NHS England Youth Forum!
Invitation to join learning set
Other news:
The Advocacy Project (Who Cares?)
The new “Registration Authorities and Smartcards” website is here
National HIV Testing Week
Funding for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia in England
Letters to CCGs:
Inviting expressions of interest for health visiting transformation funding
About this bulletin
Gateway reference number: 00750
Download Bulletin for CCGs: issue 46, 14 November 2013
Headline news:
Urgent and Emergency Care Review
During the summer, NHS England held a public engagement on the first stage of the Urgent and Emergency Care Review to gather opinions from NHS staff, patients and the public.
Following this engagement period a report was published yesterday outlining the changes we propose to make in our community, general practice, ambulance and hospital services. This has been informed by what we have learnt from our research evidence, public engagement and working with commissioners.
It is clear that we need a whole system response. We intend to deliver the component parts for a new commissioning framework to help build a stronger, more sustainable urgent and emergency care system for everyone.
Read the report here
Winter planning:
NHS 111 – winter preparedness
This letter addresses the need for the NHS 111 system to be assured that arrangements are in place over the winter period. Lead NHS 111 CCGs should ensure that Urgent Care Working Groups (UCWGs) consider the arrangements that NHS 111 providers have in place over winter, and should take ownership in working with them to provide local assurance.
This letter details processes for service failure escalation, system outages and accessing national winter contingency capacity. Lead NHS 111 CCGs are asked to take responsibility for cascading the procedures attached to this letter to on call managers to ensure they are aware of any action that needs to be taken.
Download the letter here
Download Annex E here
Standard Operating Procedures
NHS England has published details of its approach to managing increased demand and other pressures in five key critical care services this winter. The Standard Operating Procedures refer to four directly commissioned services; however CCGs have commissioning responsibility for key elements of the adult critical care pathway, which is also included.
NHS Commissioning Assembly news:
Shape the future- let us have your views
CCG colleagues are invited to become involved in two new task and finish groups that have been established as part of the Commissioning Assembly.
The Assembly continues to focus on creating a community of leaders for NHS commissioning; the ‘one team’ that will deliver better outcomes for patients.
One group has been created to consider the scope and focus of the Assembly as it continues to develop. The first group will particularly look at membership of the Commissioning Assembly, access to the Assembly website, and how the Assembly is governed. The second will focus on communications and engagement.
Each group will work virtually (webex / email) with one face to face meeting and is due to conclude work by February 2014.
If you would like to be involved or would like further information please contact us.
Framework of Excellence in Clinical Commissioning: For CCGs
The Framework of Excellence aims to set out what excellent practice looks like in CCG clinical commissioning. It has been developed in collaboration with CCGs with nearly 90 per cent of CCGs taking the opportunity to review and contribute to its development.
We want to share with you the first draft of the framework and seek your feedback on its value as a resource to support CCG development.
It would be very helpful to get your feedback via our online feedback option – just a few short questions.
There will be other opportunities to review the framework but we look forward to hearing your initial views.
Give us your views
Join the NHS Commissioning Assembly on the website and twitter
NHS Commissioning Assembly members are able to discuss hot topics, share best practice and get the latest updates on Assembly news, including the working groups, through the Commissioning Assembly website and by following us on Twitter.
Our website and twitter activity is driven by our Assembly members and you also can see what fellow Assembly twitter users are tweeting about.
Join the debate on the website here or on twitter @CommAssembly
Monthly newsletter
Look out for the monthly newsletter which will provide updates for all members of the commissioning community on key developments from the Commissioning Assembly. The first issue of this will be circulated to subscribers on Thursday 28 November.
If you would like to subscribe please contact us.
Strategic issues:
Commissioning support – make, share or buy?
‘Make, Share, Buy’ advice is intended to guide CCGs through commissioning support strategies and decisions. The advice has been co-developed with CCGs, providers, other stakeholders and industry best practice. It sets out the key steps and tools that may be used in the decision making process to enable a CCG to be confident that they are choosing the best support so that they can deliver the best outcomes for the patient.
The advice is voluntary – for CCGs to use in full or part as they wish – and reflects CCGs’ right to choose how and from whom they source their commissioning support services.
Read the joint make, share, buy letter here
Read the make, share, buy advice here
NHS Standard Contract 2014/15
NHS England plans to issue the 2014/15 NHS Standard Contract via its website by the end of December. Following consultation with stakeholders, we are maintaining the contract structure while making some key changes for 2014/15. We have written to CCGs outlining the main planned changes to the Contract and seeking feedback, and the letter is available here.
NHS England will also provide face to face training around the changes to the NHS Standard Contract and eContract system during January 2014, and webinars during February 2014.
Please contact us if you would like to be added to the mailing list for this.
Equality Delivery System refresh
On 4 November, at the London NHS Values Summit, NHS England Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson, announced a refresh of a toolkit designed to ensure NHS organisations follow best practice in delivering services that are free of discrimination and meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.
Sir David announced the refresh of the Equality Delivery System (EDS) called ‘ESD2’ – which is designed to be more streamlined and simpler to use compared with the original EDS. It is aligned to NHS England’s commitment to an inclusive NHS that is fair and accessible to all.
The EDS2 toolkit and a Q&A is available on the NHS England website here
Interactive Commissioning for Value tools
To accompany the publication of the commissioning for value packs, NHS England has released two interactive tools. The tools contain all the data used to create the packs. The Commissioning for Value Tool allows users to view maps, charts and tables for the indicators in the packs across CCGs, and to view a spine chart of all the indicators for one or more CCGs. The Commissioning for Value Explorer allows the user to explore the relationships between two indicators using maps and scatter plots.
The tools are for use on a PC but an ipad version of the tools will be available shortly.
New EU Directive on public procurement – NHS European Office briefing
A new EU Directive on public procurement was agreed in the summer of 2013, setting new rules for public bodies when purchasing goods and services, including clinical services. The Directive is expected to be implemented in the UK during 2014. The NHS European Office has produced a briefing document which explains the key aspects of the new Directive and the implications for NHS commissioners and providers.
The briefing can be found here
Ways of working survey
Thank you to everyone who completed the independent survey by NHS Clinical Commissioners evaluating the extent to which the co-produced Ways of Working are being demonstrated by NHS England. The survey ran for four weeks during November and has now closed. Ipsos MORI have commenced the process of analysing the results and will be producing the final report shortly.
The final report and outcomes will be shared with all CCGs and with NHS England in winter 2013/14.
Public Health Functions Agreement 2014/15
The NHS has a critical part to play in securing good population health. The public health functions agreement (S7A) for 2014/15 – an agreement between the Secretary of State for Health and NHS England was published on 12 November.
It enables NHS England to commission certain public health services, such as national immunisation programmes, and will drive improvements in population health and set out the outcomes to be achieved and arrangements for funding from the public health budget. The spirit of this agreement is a shared commitment from DH and NHS England, with the support of PHE to protect and improve the public’s health.
Supporting CCGs to build capability to lead transformational change – a free one-day ‘taster’ workshop for CCG leaders in London on 10 December 2013
As you may know, NHS Improving Quality’s delivery team is offering an exciting, practical programme that provides CCGs and their local partners with tools and approaches that support them to address large scale challenges, lead transformational change across boundaries, and improve outcomes for patients and local communities.
We’re already working with dozens of local alliances, led by CCGs, and are in discussion with many more across England.
The programme is funded, available now and delivered locally.
In response to requests, we’ve organised a one-day workshop session which will give you an overview of the programme, enable you to experience some of the content and meet members of our faculty including clinicians, commissioners and improvement experts.
You’ll learn how the programme can support your local efforts to:
Adopt a population, outcomes focussed approach to commissioning
Lead large-scale transformation
Engage patients/service users, carers, members of the public and communities more authentically, as partners
Mobilise partner organisations and staff to influence and engage with change across the local care delivery system
To hear more about the programme or book a place on our one-day ‘taster’ workshop for CCGs on 10 December 2013 in London please contact Susan Green or visit www.nhsiq.nhs.uk
Operational issues:
Parity of esteem knowledge portals
Parity of esteem between mental and physical health is a key priority for the NHS. Included within this is increasing access to psychological therapies and increasing the dementia diagnosis rate. Providing practical guidance, tools and positive practice is important in helping to achieve this and a number of websites provide easy access to this information. The Strategic Clinical Network in the South West has developed a web-based knowledge management tool and networking portal for dementia, and a second portal for mental health. These have recently been opened up for wider use and aim to provide easy access to key resources, tools, information, and networks. The target groups for this innovation are commissioners in health and social care and people engaged in improving services, including patients and the public. The portal also offers networking facilities. This means that people, groups and networks can connect with others engaged in similar work. The aim is for the sites to develop over time as users add their own positive practice. The IAPT central team also have a site to support practitioners, service providers and commissioners of talking therapies.
For further information please see:
www.mentalhealthpartnerships.com
www.dementiapartnerships.com
www.iapt.nhs.uk
Making health and social care information accessible
NHS England has begun a programme of work aimed at ensuring that disabled patients, service users and carers receive information from health and care organisations in formats they can understand, and appropriate support to communicate.
A dedicated section of the NHS England website has been set up to host information about this project, and details of engagement activity, expected to begin mid-November 2013, will be available here shortly. Your involvement in this activity, and any awareness-raising support you can provide, would be appreciated.
For more information please email
Implementation support for Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) Release 2
CCGs that have the resource to implement EPS, but are being held back or slowed down by a lack of resource in specific areas are encouraged to contact the EPS programme for support with deployment. EPS are trialling ways to accelerate the implementation of EPS and maximise the benefits for users and patients by supporting practice and pharmacy staff during deployment.
Support will be available until the end of March 2014 and will be prioritised on a “first come, first served” basis. These trials will help the EPS programme and suppliers plan implementation and support for practices and pharmacies through 2014/15.
For further information please contact epsimplementation@hscic.gov.uk.
You can also read about the responsibilities of CCGs for EPS deployment in the letter from SROs.
The seventh Information Governance Bulletin
The 7th edition of the information Governance bulletin is attached, with important updates on Accredited Safe Haven (ASH) status, the 20 year records review and how to comply; and on section 251 cover for commissioning.
To read the bulletin, click here
Events and Campaigns:
Specialised Health Services – scoping event
Patients, clinicians and other key stakeholders are being encouraged to get involved in the development of NHS England’s five-year strategy for specialised health services. A scoping event will be held in early December as part of the first phase of the strategy’s development.
To find out more about the strategy and how to apply for a place at this event, please click here
Invitation to apply for Membership of Clinical Senate Assembly
One of twelve Clinical Senates across England, the East of England Clinical Senate has been established to support commissioners to make the best decisions about healthcare for the populations they represent. Clinical Senate Assembly will be a diverse, multi-professional membership forum providing Clinical Senate Council with ready access to experts from the full range of health and care professions across all health and care settings. We are pleased to be able to invite all health and care professionals in the East of England to apply for membership of the Assembly.
Further information and details of how to apply are in the attached invitation
Recruiting now – Patient and Public Voice representatives for members of national Patient Safety Committees
The Patient Safety team in NHS England are currently recruiting a number of patient and public voice (PPV) representatives to sit on six Patient Safety Expert Groups and on the national Patient Safety Steering Group. The closing date to apply for either/or both the Steering Group and the Expert Groups is 2 December 2013. Interviews for the national Patient Safety Steering group only will be held on 9 January 2014.
CCGs are asked to share this opportunity through patient and public networks.
For an information pack and application form about these roles please contact kumba.jaiteh@nhs.net.
Recruiting now – NHS England Youth Forum! – An exciting opportunity for young people to make a real difference to the experience of accessing health services
The British Youth Council is helping NHS England form a group of young people to help shape health services. This group, the NHS Youth Forum, will bring together a diverse range of young people to give advice and opinions on healthcare policies, provide ideas on improving services and hold Commissioners and the NHS England Board to account for their decision making.
Applications are invited before 5 December 2013.
Find the application form and further information here:
If you have any questions please contact hugo.brookes@byc.org.uk.
CCGs are asked if they are able to share this opportunity through your networks of young people.
Invitation to join learning set
NHS England is committed to supporting commissioners to promote individual participation. This includes developing measurement tools to support individual participation.
Patient activation measure (PAM) is a measurement scale for the knowledge, skill and confidence a patient has in managing their health and care. NHS England wants to work with and offer support to CCGs to understand and evaluate:
the feasibility of using PAM in the NHS
how support for self-management can be tailored around activation
how activation improves patient outcomes
We are also interested in hearing from CCGS who are developing other measures to promote individual participation.
To find out more about PAM, click here
If your CCG would like to be involved in the work on PAM, please email Richard.Owen4@nhs.net by 21 November 2013.
Other news:
The Advocacy Project (Who Cares?)
The Advocacy Project (Who Cares?) was part of the response by The North East Learning Disability network to the Winterbourne View incidents. It was carried out by Inclusion North in partnership with people, families and professionals.
The project concludes formal advocacy is not sufficient in isolation to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities. Rather there is a need to ensure people are ‘looked out for’ on a day-to-day basis by way of informal approaches such as self, peer, family advocacy, and by direct staff in addition to formal advocacy.
The report and resources can be found here
The new “Registration Authorities and Smartcards” website is here
The public area covers policy and RA governance, and high level planning, allowing organisations new to RA processes to gain information about what is involved in accessing national systems. The NHS NWW area includes practical guidance and advice in one place, making it easier for organisations to provide a high quality and efficient service.
Please tell your colleagues about the new websites: www.hscic.gov.uk/rasmartcards and nww.hscic.gov.uk/rasmartcards.
National HIV Testing Week
Led by the Terrence Higgins Trust and funded by the Department of Health, National HIV Testing week promotes the benefits of HIV testing to gay and bisexual men and African communities. The British HIV Association and the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV will support National HIV Testing Week by encouraging all clinicians in both hospital and primary care to be alert to the need to offer and recommend an HIV test. Early diagnosis also allows people to make behavioural changes, including using condoms, to prevent onward transmission. This may result in your services receiving requests for an HIV test or information about HIV.
Funding for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia in England
The British Heart Foundation has agreed to provide over £1m of funding to support the employment of specialist Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) nurses or other key staff and is seeking to enter into partnership arrangements with CCGs which are interested in making a long-term commitment to supporting specialist FH posts.
For further information on Familial Hypercholesterolaemia please click here
Letters:
Please note that letters are not routinely sent directly to CCGs unless they are urgent or confidential. Letters are ordinarily distributed via the CGG Bulletin.
Inviting expressions of interest for health visiting transformation funding
Area teams (ATs) are invited to bid for funding which will support the delivery of the new model of Health Visiting as set out in the Health Visiting Implementation Plan. Proposals should have the support of Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs); specifically the Chair, Local Authority Directors of Children’s Services and Directors of Public Health, Provider Director of Nursing and CCGs.
This letter is for CCGs Governing Body Nurses and is relevant for CCGs as this funding is to support commissioning provider development for health visiting transformation in the context of a 0-5 strategy and CCG commission maternity services.
Read the letter here
For more information please email
About this bulletin:
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We have had feedback from a number of CCGs about preferred methods for communications. We will be putting in place a more systematic methodology to reach all CCGs directly. If you have any comments you would like to make on this, or indeed on the bulletin, please email the CCG bulletin mailbox.
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