The Royal College of Physicians today launches its new Clinical Commissioning Hub - an online resource for those commissioning secondary care services in England, service planners and clinicians designing these services across the UK. It is also aimed at RCP fellows and members interested in finding out more about the new health structures in England, including how they can get involved.
Centrally sited on the RCP website, the Hub brings together a wealth of information to support the commissioning of secondary care services across medical specialties. In addition, the Hub reinforces the promotion of patient experience and education and training in commissioning decisions.
Although the new commissioning structures only cover England, this information is relevant to anyone planning and designing secondary care services across the UK, since everyone involved at this level needs to consider key issues such as the use of audit and service accreditation to drive improvement, the importance of robust health information and the need to include education and training in commissioning decisions. The information on the hub includes:
- an overview of the new health service structures in England
- details of how and why secondary care doctors should get involved in the new commissioning bodies
- information and links to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) quality standards
- evidence-based clinical guidance produced by the National Clinical Guideline Centre, which is hosted by the RCP.
The specialty-specific pages cover:
- key points to consider when commissioning a service
- links to and information on audit and accreditation services relating to the specialty – this includes hospital-specific audit results for some services such as stroke care and IBD, and details of hospital units taking part in accreditation schemes
- links to any available specialty-specific commissioning guidance
- links to NICE pathway toolkits.
Dr Linda Patterson, RCP clinical vice-president, said:
The RCP sets, measures and evaluates quality standards in clinical care and we believe our information should be widely available to support high quality clinical commissioning. For example, our stroke programme includes clinical guidelines for high quality treatment of stroke, and audits that measure how hospitals are performing against those guidelines. By bringing this kind of information together in one place we can support high quality decision-making in commissioning.
Dr Patrick Cadigan, RCP registrar, said:
The new clinical commissioning hub will showcase not only the RCP’s work to support high quality health care, but will also provide links to guidelines and other useful information from other bodies such as the specialty societies, the National Clinical Guideline Centre and NICE that are equally relevant to our specialties and the provision of high quality care.
For further information, please contact Linda Cuthbertson, head of PR, on +44 (0)203 075 1254 / 0774 877 7919, or email Linda.Cuthbertson@rcplondon.ac.uk