Contents
Welcome from Dame Barbara Hakin
Strategic issues:
Updates from NHS Commissioning Assembly
Innovation Working Group web-ex open to all CCG members
First quarter review of CCGs with conditions and directions shows significant progress
A call to action – co-designing the engagement events with CCGs
Survey to support CCGs choose and buy commissioning support
Other news:
Social care funding reform consultation launched
NHS Friends and Family Test
Specialist Commissioning Medicines CRG recruitment launched
Vulnerable older people’s plan
Government consultation on NHS England mandate refresh
NHS hospital data and datasets: A consultation
Liverpool Care Pathway report published
250th NHS IMAS assignment ‘supportive and challenging’ says CCG lead
NHS Property Services
Introduction of shingles vaccine for people aged 70
Online resource launched for caring and sharing nursing staff
Events and campaigns:
Be Clear On Cancer – blood in urine campaign
Promoting the NHS Constitution – NHS England extra consultative workshops in Midlands and South West
About this bulletin
Gateway reference number: 00274
Download the Bulletin for CCGs: Issue 38, 25 July 2013 (PDF, 119KB)
Dame Barbara Hakin
Interim Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive
Welcome from Dame Barbara Hakin
Today we reach a significant milestone in supporting CCGs to be great organisations with the publication of results of the first post-authorisation conditions and directions review.
I am delighted to report excellent progress at this very early stage with 152 CCGs now being fully authorised. This demonstrates the enthusiasm and hard work of CCGs to quickly tackle early challenges.
We know this is just the beginning. NHS England’s comprehensive development support programme is progressing well and the new assurance framework, devised in conjunction with CCGs, will be published in the autumn.
The NHS England Board met last week and discussed the CCG development framework which has been co-produced with CCGs. The Board endorsed the framework, recognising the need for good support to CCG leadership, and tools to support CCGs in their specific needs.
You will be aware of the significant focus on 14 Trusts with outlying high mortality rates last week.
Sir Bruce Keogh, in his former role as NHS Medical Director, led an independent review of these Trusts, on behalf of the Prime Minister and Secretary of State and many of you have been involved in local panels and risk summits relating to the 14 Trusts.
In addition to the in-depth reports into specific Trusts, Sir Bruce has set out his ambition for improvement which seeks to tackle some of the underlying causes of poor care. These are significant steps in demonstrating an open and transparent NHS and improve quality of care for our patients now and in the future.
We need to make significant progress towards achieving this ambition and will consider the implications for us when we meet at the NHS Commissioning Assembly event in September.
To read more about the review click here. To read the overview report click here.
Finally, John Bewick, currently Director of CCG Development at NHS England has been appointed Director (South) within the organisation. John will be taking up his new role on 2 September 2013. John has done sterling work leading CCG Development and I know he will make a great contribution to his new role in the South.
Dame Barbara Hakin
Interim Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive
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Strategic issues:
Updates from NHS Commissioning Assembly
Second Steering Group meeting held
The second NHS Commissioning Assembly Steering Group, co-chaired by Rosamond Roughton, National Director of Commissioning Development and Dr Peter Melton, Clinical Chief Officer, North East Lincolnshire CCG took place on 9 July 2013. The Group is formed of members of the Assembly (CCG clinical leaders and NHS England leaders) and sets the strategic direction for the Assembly.
The Group examined a number of strategic issues and discussed the progress of key Assembly work areas and working groups.
The Steering Group debated the role of the Assembly, and its members in leading local discussions on the call to action and agreed that the Assembly should support ‘The NHS belongs to the people: a call to action’.
Paul Baumann, Chief Financial Officer, NHS England, updated the Steering Group on the implications of the Health Settlement announcement for healthcare commissioners and the challenge of achieving savings across health and social care. The Finance Working Group will be key to influencing this work going forward and the Group agreed that the Finance Working Group should be extended to consider the approach to planning in 2014/15.
The Group also agreed that the Commissioning Assembly annual event would be held at Edgbaston, Birmingham on 25 September 2013, and considered an update on the development of the Commissioning Assembly website which will be launched at the event. Registration for the event will be circulated to all Assembly members shortly.
If you would like any further information on the Commissioning Assembly, the Steering Group or wish to join the working groups, please contact bethany.clift@nhs.net.
Rapid Reference Groups
The Clinical Rapid Reference Group and the Chief Officers Rapid Reference Group of the Commissioning Assembly consist of volunteer assembly members who provide a rapid response on issues of national policy or guidance to NHS England.
These groups are very active and their work is extensive and includes providing feedback and discussion on topics such as the Liverpool Care Pathway, dementia diagnosis rates, draft CCG assurance framework, reducing premature mortality, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and CCG constitutions.
If you are interested in becoming part of either the Clinical or Chief Officers Rapid Reference Group, then please contact Samantha.walsh4@nhs.net
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Quality Working Group – get involved!
A message from Dr Paul Husselbee (Accountable Officer, Southend CCG) and John Stewart (Quality Framework Director, NHS England) – Joint Chairs, NHS Commissioning Assembly Quality Working Group
How can we assure ourselves of the quality of care we have commissioned for our patients?
How can we commission services in a way that improves outcomes and maximises health gain for our local populations?
These are the two questions, fundamental to our role as commissioners, being grappled by the Quality Working Group (QWG) of the NHS Commissioning Assembly.
With the recent publication of Keogh Report into the quality of care and treatment provided by 14 Trusts in England and the key messages in it for commissioners, the work of this group is crucial and timely. What data and intelligence is available to us? How can it be made easier for us to access? What skills and capabilities do we need on our boards to really grip the quality agenda and how do we get them? How can we complement and not duplicate the work of Care Quality Commission, NHS Trust Development Authority, Monitor and Local Healthwatch? What expectations should we place on ourselves and on our providers in relation to quality?
How do we do all of the above without losing sight of the even greater prize of maximising health gain for our local populations and getting real value from the money we spend. The QWG will be reporting back at the next meeting of full NHS Commissioning Assembly on 25 September 2013 on all of this.
If you are interested in joining the QWG, please contact ben.monks@nhs.net.
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Innovation Working Group web-ex open to all CCG members
All CCG members are invited to join an innovation web-ex on Tuesday 30 July at 12.30 – 1.30pm.
The web-ex is being held to enable the co-production of the innovation programme going forward.
The innovation team at NHS England is gearing up to deliver the innovation agenda and is keen to work alongside CCG members at this exciting stage of development.
If you would be keen to be involved in this session and would like further details, please contact Rachelburnett@nhs.net.
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First quarter review of CCGs with conditions and directions shows significant progress
First quarter review of CCGs with conditions and directions shows significant progress.
46 CCGs have had all their conditions fully discharged, meaning a total of 152 out of 211 CCGs are now fully authorised. The number of CCGs with directions has been reduced from 14 to 8. Two CCGs that had legal directions in place are now recommended for full authorisation.
NHS England will continue to support CCGs to address any remaining conditions. Over the next few weeks, CCGs will be asked to agree revised rectification plans with their area teams, will arrange appropriate support.
Find out more and download the report
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A call to action – co-designing the engagement events with CCGs
Following the launch of ‘The NHS belongs to the people: a call to action’ at the start of July, work has been progressing well with CCGs around the co-design of the engagement events. Six CCGs: Dorset, North East Lincolnshire, Harrogate and Rural District, Hull, Birmingham South and Central and Enfield have expressed an interest to work with NHS England’s Call to Action team on the development and content of the local and national engagement events, which will take place from September 2013.
A range of stakeholders, including members of the public, third sector, Healthwatch and health and wellbeing boards will be involved in the co-design phase and the overall shape of the campaign. The outcome will give the engagement exercise a structure, but not mandate it too much so that it can still fit with CCGs existing priorities.
The team are busy working through other key elements of the Call to Action which includes producing dedicated resources for CCGs to use in their own campaigns, web and digital plans and also national context setting activity.
For any further information about the call to action contact england.calltoaction@nhs.net.
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Survey to support CCGs choose and buy commissioning support
A voluntary survey was launched in the last issue of the Bulletin to gain insight on how NHS England can support CCGs to choose and buy their commissioning support through simple and cost effective procurement routes.
The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete and will close on Friday 16 August 2013.
Take part in the survey
To support this, a webinar will be held on Wednesday 31 July at 1.15pm – 2.15pm, where more in-depth discussion with CCGs around the proposals will take place.
If you would like to attend please contact commissioning.support@nhs.net and the team will send you the joining instructions.
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Other news:
Social care funding reform consultation launched
On 18 July 2013, the Government published a consultation on social care funding reform which will run until 25 October 2013. Plans to help people better prepare for the cost of their future care needs have been published alongside details of how the new fairer funding system will protect homes and savings. The consultation looks in detail at the various elements of the reforms, and seeks views from a wide range of people to help deliver a fairer and more sustainable care and support system in local areas. Jon Rouse, Director General of Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships at the Department of Health has written to system leaders to highlight the consultation and ask for contributions.
Download the letter
Take part in the consultation (closes on 25 October 2013)
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NHS Friends and Family Test
The results of the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) for all acute hospital inpatient and accident and emergency departments will be published by NHS England on 30 July 2013. This will be the first occasion that FFT results will be made available at a national level. As the data is classed as an ‘experimental Official Statistic’ and governed by strict publication protocols, NHS England is not able to share the results of the national FFT picture prior to publication. Communications and patient experience leads and regional and area teams have been sent supporting materials to assist with this process and have been asked to share accordingly with CCG FFT leads.
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Specialist Commissioning Medicines CRG recruitment launched
NHS England has opened the application process for membership of its new specialised commissioning Clinical Reference Group (CRG).
CRGs bring together clinicians, commissioners, and Public Health experts with the patients and carers who use the relevant services.
The Specialised Commissioning Medicines Optimisation CRG will work across all 74 service-specific CRGs.
If you have a particular interest, knowledge or experience of a specific area of specialised healthcare and wish to contribute to its development more information is available here.
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Vulnerable older people’s plan
NHS England’s ‘The NHS belongs to the people: a call to action’ sets out the need for all health and care organisations to contribute to a sustainable future for the NHS.
Maintaining and improving the quality of care for our growing – and ageing – population remains one of the biggest challenges for the health and care system, which is why the Government has launched an engagement exercise to develop a plan for vulnerable older people.
The Department of Health’s (DH) vision is for joined up out-of-hospital services which will enable the NHS, social care and voluntary sector services to provide excellent, timely care by the right person, in the right setting. An enhanced role for primary care and innovative approaches to commissioning services, which straddle traditional boundaries between NHS England, CCGs and local authorities, will be critical to achieving this.
DH set out a series of proposals and would like to hear your views on them over the summer.
DH will also be running a number of face to face engagement events at which we would welcome your attendance and will publicise details of these shortly via this bulletin.
Find out more and how to get involved
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Government consultation on NHS England mandate refresh
The mandate from the Government which sets out the objectives for NHS England for the period April 2013 to March 2015 is being reviewed for 2014-2015. The Department of Health launched a 12 week consultation on the proposed changes to the mandate on 5July 2013 and NHS England will be submitting a corporate response.
CCG responses to the mandate would be most welcome and further details about the process for doing this are detailed in the link below.
More information and links to the consultation document
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NHS hospital data and datasets: A consultation
This week, NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) launched a joint consultation asking what data should be collected from hospitals starting in April 2014. The Francis Report into the failings at Mid Staffordshire Hospital called for a marked improvement in the breadth and quality of data collected from hospitals. The consultation, which forms part of the care.data programme to create a modern data service for the NHS, proposes an illustrative data set that hospitals might be required to submit. The consultation asks questions about this proposed data set; how to minimise any additional burden on hospital staff; and how to maximise the quality, completeness, and timeliness of the data extracted.
Find out more about the consultation
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Liverpool Care Pathway report published
The report of the Independent Review headed by Baroness Julia Neuberger into the end of life model of care – the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) was published on 15 July 2013.
NHS England has welcomed the report. We recognise the good principles of end of life care in the LCP, but that there have been failings in the quality of care in some areas and that this is never acceptable. We want to consider fully the recommendations in the report with CCGs to help inform our response back to the Government on this in the autumn.
Further information on how this will happen and how you can be involved will be included in future CCG Bulletins.
Find out more
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250th NHS IMAS assignment ‘supportive and challenging’ says CCG lead
NHS Interim Management And Support (NHS IMAS) 250th assignment supported CCGs to improve its elective care performance.
NHS IMAS, offer NHS organisations that need short or medium term support, access to management expertise that exists throughout the NHS. The organisation recently celebrated completing its 250th assignment and saving over £9.1 million for the NHS in the last financial year; a significant increase on previous year’s saving of £7.1 million.
The 250th assignment was carried out at a group of CCGs in the Midlands to improve 18 week elective wait performance. Client feedback was very positive, saying the NHS IMAS pool member: “…more than fulfilled the scope of the assignment and their style was supportive and challenging when needed. The NHS IMAS pool member took the 18 week waits from one of the worst in the country through to one of the best during the NHS IMAS assignment.”
NHS IMAS offers a reliable service to NHS organisations needing support and is tailored to the needs of the client. An extensive resource pool of experienced senior NHS leaders is available to provide interim or consultancy support across provider, commissioning and national NHS organisations.
If you have a senior support requirement, please contact the core team on 0113 825 0801/0802 or nhs.imas@nhs.net.
Find out more
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NHS Property Services
NHS Property Services works to improve the management and cost effectiveness of NHS estate, and provide greater transparency on what it costs the NHS to run. The company manages 4,000 NHS properties ranging from community hospitals and GP surgeries to offices and storage buildings.
Simon Holden, the Chief Executive of NHS Property Services, wrote to CCGs in June 2013. In his letter, Simon said the total cost of managing the NHS Property Services portfolio this year will be the same as last year. Costs for tenants and CCGs this year are based solely on detailed data collections from PCTs during 2012/13.
The company has no intention to make any profit in its first two years of operation. Whatever is saved in the future will benefit tenants and organisations such as CCGs.
NHS Property Services was launched four months ago, and has inherited the systems of previous organisations. The company will work closely with you to improve these.
For more information about NHS Property Services, please get in touch with one of the company’s regional directors or area team Coordinators.
NHS Property Services 2013/14 business plan
Access June 2013 letter from Simon Holden
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Introduction of shingles vaccine for people aged 70
This letter details the programme of introduction of the shingles vaccine from September 2013.
Supported by the Department of Health’s Chief Medical Officer, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and Director of Nursing, it is planned to offer routine vaccinations to people aged 70 years. A catch up immunisation programme for people aged 79 will also be introduced in September 2013.
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Online resource launched for caring and sharing nursing staff
NHS England has launched an new online communication ‘hub’ designed to give care staff a place to share best practice, experiences, ideas and resources.
Clinical staff can sign up for regular updates and webinars with leaders but also get involved by taking part in the online network to link up with colleagues right across the country to share examples of compassionate care and good practice – as well as celebrate success.
The web based tool, called the 6Cs Live! Communication Hub, aims to be a one-stop-shop and is part of the Compassion in Practice strategy launched by Chief Nursing Officer Jane Cummings last December.
The 6Cs, which are care, compassion, competence, communication, courage and commitment, are values essential to compassionate care and the communication hub will support staff in delivering this vision.
All care staff are encouraged to sign up and create their profile to make the most of this opportunity and start sharing their experiences.
Events and campaigns:
Be Clear On Cancer – blood in urine campaign
This letter from Public Health England, in partnership with NHS England and Department of Health, announces details of the next national Be Clear On Cancer campaign launching in October. Highlighting the most common symptom of kidney and bladder cancers, the campaign tells people to go and see their GP if they see blood in the urine, even if it’s ‘just the once’. The campaign was successfully tested in the North of England earlier this year.
Find out more
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Promoting the NHS Constitution – NHS England extra consultative workshops in Midlands and South West
The NHS Constitution is fundamental to the NHS. It sets out the principles and values of the NHS and the rights and responsibilities of patients, staff, and the public. The Department of Health published a refreshed version in March 2013.
Last year, the NHS Future Forum looked at the impact of the NHS Constitution and concluded:
awareness remains low;
there is little evidence it is widely used by patients and staff to uphold their rights and the pledges made; and
for the NHS Constitution to have real effect, it needs to be embedded at every level in the NHS.
CCGs, NHS England and Health Education England (HEE) have a statutory duty to ‘promote’ the Constitution. NHS England believes a sustained improvement in the use of the Constitution across the NHS is only possible through a coordinated, system-wide approach. We have therefore been holding a series of workshops with CCGs and HEE to explore ideas with a view to co-developing and implementing a joint strategy for promoting and embedding the Constitution in everything that the NHS does, including an appropriate means of monitoring progress and impact.
We would like to hold one or two more workshops with CCGs, CSUs and NHS England areas teams to hear their views. If you are interested in how we can promote the NHS Constitution and are in a CCG, CSU or area team based in the Midlands or South West we would like to invite you to a half day workshop to explore what levers you can use to help promote and embed the NHS Constitution. This should help you and also us as we develop our joint strategy.
Please email with your availability for the proposed dates and times set out below. We will confirm those date(s) that have the most interest.
Midlands – Option 1
Date and Time: Friday 26 July (09:30 – 13:30)
Location: Birmingham Women’s Hospital
South West – Option 2
Date and Time: Thursday 1 August (12:30 – 16:30)
Location: South West House, Taunton
And/or Option 3
Date and Time: Friday 2 August (09:30 – 13:30)
Location: South West House, Taunton
If you would like to attend one of the above workshops, please reply to England.NHSConstitution@nhs.net with the following information:
Your name
Your CCG / CSU / area team
Your role
Your availability
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