HSJ LIVE 18.02.2015: Full list of CCG primary care commissioners unveiled

15.54 We’ve published a full story on the first wave of CCGs which NHS England has agreed can begin commissioning primary care from April.

This reveals a regional divide in the CCGs which will be taking on these responsibilities: 24 CCGs in the North (35.3 per cent of CCGs in the region) and 26 in the Midlands and East (42.6 per cent) have been approved for have full delegated commissioning of their member practices. However, just eight in the South (16 per cent) and six in London (18.8 per cent) have been approved.

HSJ revealed last month that 77 CCGs had submitted proposals to NHS England to take on delegated commissioning of primary care.

15.36. Several national newspapers have reported on new draft guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

According to the Daily Telegraph’s story, the guidance urges family doctors to challenge colleagues who overprescribe antibiotics, after research showed 97 per cent of patients who ask for the drugs are given them.

The NICE guidelines aims to curb excessive use amid concern that resistance to antibiotics is becoming a “catastrophic threat” to the nation’s health.

14.56: The chief executive of NHS England has signalled his priorities for the nursing professional in an interview with HSJ’s sister title Nursing Times.

Simon Stevens says that cutting the “staggering” level of spending on agency workers and improving the way staff from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are treated should be top of the service’s to-do list.

Directors of nursing would be asked to help tackle both issues over the coming months, he added.

“My view is that one of the single most important things that the NHS has got to get right over the next year is dealing with the ballooning use of agency nursing staff and other staff across the country,” he said.

14.37 ITV News is reporting that Wye Valley NHS Trust is asking visitors stay to away from all its hospitals until the risk of spreading the winter vomiting bug reduces.

The trust said the suspension of visitors was likely to last for a last few days due to the risk of spreading the virus and “enormous pressure” on services.

Some operations have been cancelled to ease the situation, after the County Hospital’s Emergency Department admitted around 20 per cent more patients than normal over last weekend.

14.26 NHS England has unveiled the first set of GP-led clinical commissioning groups to take on responsibility for commissioning the majority of primary care services from April this year.

Some 64 CCGs across the country have been approved to take on greater ‘delegated’ commissioning responsibility for GP services with the possibility that others may follow.

This follows plans set out by NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens, early last year, to give patients, communities and clinicians more scope in deciding how local services are developed.

The list of the first wave of CCG is below. A full story soon…

North

NHS Sunderland CCG

NHS North Durham CCG

NHS Durham Dales, Easington And Sedgefield CCG

NHS East Lancashire CCG

NHS Greater Preston CCG

NHS Chorley And South Ribble CCG

NHS Blackpool CCG

NHS Fylde & Wyre CCG

NHS Blackburn With Darwen CCG

NHS Bradford City CCG

NHS Bradford Districts CCG

NHS Calderdale CCG

NHS Wakefield CCG

NHS Scarborough And Ryedale CCG

NHS Harrogate And Rural District CCG

NHS Vale Of York CCG

NHS Barnsley CCG

NHS Rotherham CCG

NHS St Helens CCG

NHS Liverpool CCG

NHS Knowsley CCG

NHS Halton CCG

NHS Oldham CCG

NHS Wigan Borough CCG

Midlands and East

NHS South Warwickshire CCG

NHS South Worcestershire CCG

NHS Birmingham Crosscity CCG

NHS Sandwell And West Birmingham CCG

NHS Dudley CCG

NHS Birmingham South And Central CCG

NHS Telford & Wrekin CCG

NHS Shropshire CCG

NHS North Derbyshire CCG

NHS Hardwick CCG

NHS Mansfield & Ashfield CCG

NHS Newark & Sherwood CCG

NHS Nottingham North & East CCG

NHS Nottingham West CCG

NHS Nottingham City CCG

NHS Erewash CCG

NHS Rushcliffe CCG

NHS Southern Derbyshire CCG

NHS Lincolnshire West CCG

NHS Lincolnshire East CCG

NHS South West Lincolnshire CCG

NHS South Lincolnshire CCG

NHS East Leicestershire And Rutland CCG

NHS Leicester City CCG

NHS West Leicestershire CCG

NHS Castle Point And Rochford CCG

London

NHS Tower Hamlets CCG

NHS Waltham Forest CCG

NHS Newham CCG

NHS Redbridge CCG

NHS Barking & Dagenham CCG

NHS Havering CCG

South

NHS Eastbourne, Hailsham And Seaford CCG

NHS Hastings & Rother CCG

NHS High Weald Lewes Havens CCG

NHS South Eastern Hampshire CCG

NHS Fareham And Gosport CCG

NHS West Hampshire CCG

NHS Portsmouth CCG

NHS Gloucestershire CCG

14.21pm Monitor has begun ‘co-designing’ and testing models for capitation based payment systems to help in the commissioning of new models for integrated care, HSJ can reveal.

The regulator’s pricing development lead, Jyrki Kolsi, has said the next two years will be a testing period to help it design the best examples of capitated payments for patient care. 

Capitation, in which a provider or group of providers is given a budget to look after the care of a particular population such as patients with long term conditions, was endorsed in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

14.13pm We’ve a full story on the £124m mental health services contract in Birmingham up on the site now.

14.04pm The proposed merger between two trusts in Surrey has hit a stumbling block after the Competition and Markets Authority said the merger could have ‘adverse effects’ for patients and it has launched an investigation.

Royal Surrey County Hospital Foundation Trust and Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals Foundation Trust put forward their proposal to merge in May last year.

They hope to offer more specialist services and to establish a major emergency centre on one of the sites if the merger goes ahead

12.52pm Several acute trusts are considering complaining about the way their clinical commissioning groups have spent money earmarked for cutting emergency admissions, HSJ can reveal

Senior officials at Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have been told that the providers are concerned that commissioners have not been spending money they receive from trusts through the marginal rate emergency tariff rule transparently or effectively.

Under the marginal rate rule, hospitals are paid just 30 per cent of normal prices for all emergency admissions above 2008-09 levels. The remaining 70 per cent is to be reinvested by CCGs to reduce hospital admissions.

12.26pm The Independentsplashes a story across its front page today, claiming that drug firms are retreating from the search for a dementia cure.

The story says pharma has suffered “repeated and costly” failures to develop breakthrough medication, according to a report compiled by the Dementia Forum of the World Innovation Summit for Health.

12.14pm The Guardian’s Society section reports today that the chief executive of Healthwatch England has warned the Department of Health about a “loophole” in regulation that leaves vulnerable people living in appalling conditions.

According to Healthwatch England chief Katherine Rake, people living in so-called “supported accommodation” have no obvious redress and that “poor quality of care” can go unchallenged.

The Department of Health tells the Guardian it kept the “types of activity the [Care Quality Commission] regulates under review”.

11.58am Another significant stories today is that trusts have gone beyond the government target to treat 100,000 extra patients waiting over 16 weeks for treatment.

The overall number of extra treatments performed on patients waiting over 16 weeks was just under 143,000 between July and December. This included more than 36,000 admitted patients treated and over 106,000 outpatient treatments compared to the same period in 2013,HSJ analysis shows.

11.49am Birmingham South Central Clinical Commissioning Group has picked a mental health partnership led by Birmingham Children’s Hospital as the preferred bidder for a £124m contract to provide mental health services for children, young people and young adults.

Forward Thinking Birmingham was chosen by the CCG following a selection process which involved children, young people and young adult.

Sarah-Jane Marsh, chief executive of Birmingham Children’s Hospital, said: “We are truly delighted that Forward Thinking Birmingham is the preferred bidder for this important contract that will radically improve how mental health services are delivered across our city.”

Full story up story soon…

11.40am The Health and Social Care Information Centre reports today that the proportion of women screened for breast cancer in England has fallen for the third consecutive year.

As of the end of last March, almost 76 per cent (4.28m) of the 5.64m eligible women aged 53 to 70 had been screened within the last three years.

This compares with 76.4 per cent at the same point in 2013, 77.0 per cent in 2012 and a peak of 77.2 per cent in 2011.

Although coverage has fallen for the third year running, it remainsl above the NHS Cancer Screening Programme’s minimum standard of 70 per cent.

11.33am: Our top story today is that government’s focus has moved from accident and emergency performance to the NHS’s 3.2 million elective waiting list.

Trusts have been told to “redouble” their efforts to treat elective patients by the Department of Health,

The sources have said they believe this is an attempt to bring the waiting list down to the level it was at in May 2010, when the coalition government took office, before the general election in May.

10.45am: Government focus has moved from accident and emergency performance to the NHS’s 3.2 million elective waiting list, senior foundation trust sector sources have told HSJ.