Commissioning supplement: The right services at the right time

Commissioning within the NHS is being shaped by a variety of factors, ranging from technology to the third sector.

This week’s supplement, produced in association with Skills for Health, IMS Health and the British Red Cross, looks at:

• workforce planning – how commissioners are incorporating an increasingly strategic approach to workforce planning in primary care that takes into account staff skills and potential;
• gaining value from data – how the valuable data available can help shape services and resource use, and benefit the NHS; and
• benefitting from third sector organisations – how engaging the services of a voluntary organisation helped to reduce the pressures on accident and emergency departments last winter.