Issue - meetings

To receive a briefing outlining the roles and responsibilities, structures, and plans for 2013/14 of the Borough’s Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

Officers of the Clinical Commissioning Groups will attend the meeting to provide a presentation.

The Committee received a briefing on Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Fiona Field and Rebecca Patel attended the meeting to provide presentations on South Cheshire CCG and Eastern Cheshire CCG respectfully. Members asked questions and the following points were made:

·         The Key focus of CCGs was the commissioning and monitoring of services that were centred on the needs of the patient and carer(s).     

·         General Practitioners (GPs) were members of CCGs to commission all services apart from their own. Primary Care from GPs was commissioned by NHS England and was an important part of health services.

·         CCGs were responsible, along with the Council, for development of Cheshire East’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWS).     

·         Eastern Cheshire CCG consisted of 23 GP Practices covering: Alderley Edge, Congleton, Holmes Chapel, Knutsford, Macclesfield, Poynton and Wilmslow. This area had a population of approximately 201,000 and a budget of £219million.  

·         South Cheshire CCG consisted of 18 GPs covering: Audlem, Alsager, Crewe, Middlewich, Nantwich and Sandbach. This area had a population of approximately 173,000 and a budget of £193million.

·         Setting the budgets had been a complicated process of unpicking the PCTs budgets with funding being directed to a variety of different organisations. CCGs’ budgets were mostly based on population but were also weighted based on the proportion of older people and the overall level of deprivation in the area.      

·         The key challenges for CCGs included reducing health inequalities and improving health outcomes for patients.       

·         CCG annual plans would set measurable targets based on desired health outcomes and would be focussed on making a difference to patients. The Committee would be able to scrutinise the plans and the performance of CCGs through the measureable targets. Local measures would be based on local priorities identified in the JHWS.

·         Some residents living in south Cheshire used North Staffordshire Hospital rather than one of the hospitals in the Borough. The CCGs would try to ensure that they included figures for those residents that use hospitals outside of the Borough in their performance outcomes.

·         Issues like obesity were the responsibility of the Council through Public Health rather than CCGs. Demand Management was about prevention of ill health and reducing the need to go to hospital rather than reducing the number of cases that were dealt with.

The Committee discussed how it would scrutinise the performance of CCGs n future. It was suggested that expectations needed to be managed as it may take several years before significant improvements resulting from the introduction of CCGs would be visible. However there would be some indicators of performance at an earlier stage and the Committee would be able to examine these within twelve months. The Chairman suggested that representatives of the CCGs could attend a meeting in six months to inform the Committee about how the changes to commissioning had progressed and whether there were any inefficiencies in the new system.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the presentation be noted.   

(b)  That representatives of the CCGs be invited to attend a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 116