NHS Clinical Commissioners are today launching their new publication Leading local partnerships: how CCGs are driving integration for their patients and local populations.
‘Leading Local Partnerships’ profiles just some of the clinical commissioning groups across England who, despite still being relatively new organisations, are already driving new and innovative models of care that put the patient at the heart of the system, and are improving the health and wellbeing of their local populations.
Integrating healthcare is critical to a safe and sustainable NHS, and CCGs are uniquely placed to use their clinical expertise, their roots in the community and their system leadership role to work in partnership across the health and care system to do just that and make a different for their patients. Without CCGs to harness this powerful combination it couldn’t happen.
Leading Local Partnerships is introduced by NHSCC co-chairs Dr Steve Kell and Dr Amanda Doyle who said:
“As GPs we know that we and our patients are sometimes hindered by a fragmented system. We know that while we can treat the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that affected an individual for year, there has traditionally been little we could easily do about the damp patch at home that was exacerbating the problem.
As clinical commissioners, we know that we are leading changes to reduce that fragmentation and ensure patients get all the support they need. This report is proof. It showcases 20 examples of CCGs joining with partners, not just from social care, but from the voluntary and private sectors, to improve the health of their populations.”
The report shows how CCGs are:
Caring for people closer to home
Ensuring people get the right support at the right time
Caring more effectively for frail older people
Making care more efficient
Helping people to protect and take control of their own health
Dr Michael Dixon, senior advisor to NHSCC and Chair of NHS Alliance, said of the report “CCGs are involved in a wide range of roles ranging from improving hospital services, organising contracts and tenders to controlling budgets. Their prime role, however, is to make a real difference to services provided in or near a patient’s home. This report shows that they are already beginning to make that difference.’
“Clinical commissioning is about translating the hopes and aspirations of patients and their frontline clinicians into everyday practice. Top of those hopes and aspirations for our patients must be the creation of high-quality, comprehensive and integrated services provided in the community which puts the patient at the centre. That is what this document is about.”
29 October 2014