Brighton and Hove Emerging Clinical Commissioning Group

Introduction

The Coalition Government announced a number of reforms to the NHS in its White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, which was published in July 2010.

As part of these reforms, primary care trusts (PCTs) would be abolished and their functions would be passed to clinical commissioning groups and a new national NHS Commissioning Board, while the responsibility for public health is handed to local authorities.

Following consultation in autumn 2010, these reforms have been put into the Health and Social Care Bill, which will need approval by Parliament for it to become law.

The role of NHS Brighton and Hove

The role of PCTs, while still undertaking their statutory and legal duties, is to support the development of their local clinical commissioning groups to take on the responsibility for commissioning health care services.

To this end, we are doing a number of things over the next few months:

• Working with our emerging clinical commissioning groups to help them decide what GP commissioning looks like for Brighton and Hove.
• Working with our PCT cluster in Sussex to put into place transitional arrangement for those functions transferring to the new national NHS Commissioning Board and which need to be provided on a larger geographical basis than Brighton and Hove.
• Working with Brighton & Hove City Council to agree how to transfer public health functions and identifying the resources and support the local authority needs to lead on joint commissioning.
  

Brighton and Hove Emerging Clinical Commissioning Group

Brighton and Hove GPs have worked together to establish an emerging clinical commissioning group which covers the city, from Saltdean in the east to Portslade in the west. This covers a population of about 256,000.

While the Commissioning Group is still very much in its infancy, practice-based commissioning has already commissioned services in the city, for community rapid response services, for example.

What we understand today

The Coalition Government is currently pausing to listen and reflect on elements of the Bill through a number of listening events and a national consultation. However, current plans suggest that commissioning groups will be responsible for commissioning the following:

• Services from the hospitals (planned, routine care, and emergency care)
• Community and primary care services (district nurses, community matrons, health visitors)
• Mental health services
• Prescribing
• Learning disabilities services
• Corporate management- managers to support the GPs

Commissioning groups will not be responsible for contracting:

• Primary medical, dental, optometric, pharmaceutical services
• Health improvement and prevention (though consortia will be expected to work with local authorities to achieve this)
• Adult social care
• Early years i.e. children's social services or respite care