The resource centre for clinical commissioning
Supporting the PBC reinvigoration process - taking up the challenge
When the Department of Health invited me to support the PBC reinvigoration process I had no hesitation in taking up the challenge.
James Kingsland
National Clinical Lead for PBC
Clinical involvement in the commissioning process is hugely important – and increasingly controversial. I suppose we should be flattered that politicians and civil servants feel that this is a sufficiently serious topic to fight over. When David Colin Thomé made headlines earlier this month for appearing to be ringing the death knell for PBC, the resulting storm made it clear that nothing could be further from the truth. Dead policies rarely provoke such indignation.
There are arguments about the semantics and an increasingly politicised turf war about who has the intellectual property rights to next year’s model but nobody disagrees with the fundamental point that clinical commissioning is a vital component of health service reform. By all means change the terminology but there is no question of clinical commissioning leaving the game.
Over the course of the summer, I have been talking to clinical leaders from across England. These are not the usual suspects but fresh faces who want to play their part in driving forward the clinical commissioning agenda.
Our aims are as follows:
- To collect and share the best examples of clinical commissioning good practice
- To support the development of commissioning tools such as accountability agreements (compacts), of which more in a future blog
- To clarify the relationship between clinical commissioning and the Transforming Community Services agenda
- To work with the Care Quality Commission in developing assessments of quality in PBC service redesign
- To act as an expert resource for SHAs in supporting workshops and dispute resolutions
- To explore links with secondary care to enable development of more effective care pathways
This is not an exclusive club but a genuinely non-partisan attempt to bring together all those interested in the development of clinical commissioning. We welcome your ideas and your participation.
You need to listen to more people at the grass roots level. No-one from the area that I work in has even heard of the Clinical Champions Club, let alone been offered membership. PBC should be abandonned and PCTs allowed to facilitate clinical engagement in their own way.
It is unlikley PBC will work until it is monetised. A GP with a cheque book and stethascope can do more than with a stethascope alone. Tory policy is to strengthen PBC but it remains to be seen how much of the cash budget they will hand over.