RCP statement on Health Select Committee 'Commissioning: further issues' Report

The Health Committee’s Commissioning report endorses a number of the recommendations the RCP made in our written evidence submission. This includes the recommendation that representatives of hospital doctors, public health specialists, nurses and local communities sit alongside GPs in NHS commissioning. This will help promote integrated working. We welcome that the Committee agrees with the RCP that this needs to be mandated, and that secondary legislation should require hospital doctors and nurses to have a reserved place with GPs on consortia boards.

Sir Richard Thompson, president of the RCP said:

The RCP welcomes the report and wants to see ‘commissioning without walls’ – where a broad range of clinicians are fully involved in the commissioning process. However, although the government supports this, currently the Bill provisions are too loose, leaving involvement of clinicians dependent on local relationships alone. Without further specific legislation there is a risk of fragmentation of services and damage to patient care.

To achieve involvement in commissioning from a broad range of health professionals, the RCP recommends that consortia should publish information on how they have involved other clinicians, and that the national NHS Board assesses the extent of clinical involvement in commissioning in their annual assessment.

The RCP further welcomes the recommendation that the new local commissioning bodies created by the Health and Social Care Bill be referred to as NHS Commissioning Authorities.