Authorisation about us, but without us
August 21, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, Public Involvement, Wandsworth
Small may be beautiful, but “size matters”. That’s is the inescapable conclusion of the news that 1 in 7 CCGs (clinical commissioning groups, formerly known as GP consortia) are too small for authorisation. Health Service Journal reckons that 47 CCGs have fewer than 50,000 patients; some...
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The throttling season
August 14, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Local Authorities, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, patient participation, Public Involvement
The dog days of August have been anything but torpid, and not just on the streets. In the policy arena the Department of Health continued to tighten its grip around the throat of any meaningful patient and public involvement. It’s the throttling season. The most recent example was the launch...
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The Big Beast sells out public involvement
July 31, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Consultation, News posts, Public Involvement
The Big Beast in the NHS jungle Sir David Nicholson has decreed that the new PCT “clusters” will take responsibility for public involvement in the “shared operating model” the Department of Health released on 28th July. ”Shared” in this sense means everyone doing things...
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Summer Newsletter: Citizen Result
July 22, 2011 by Colin Adamson
Filed under Active citizens, commissioning, Complaint Handling, Consultation, Management & Innovation, News posts, Newsletters, NHS, Public Involvement, Research
This has been quite a summer for campaigning and the citizen voice. Most recently I got this email from Ricken Patel of Avaaz showing how a combination of persistence, skill in using modern communication networks and helped by the breaking phone hacking scandal had turned a done deal around.
It’s...
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GP Commissioning: a US view – lots of ways to get it wrong: very few to get it right
June 28, 2011 by Colin Adamson
Filed under commissioning, International, Management & Innovation, News posts, NHS, Research
Lots of ways to get it wrong and very few ways to get it right – worrying words from US doctor/academic Dr Lawrence Casalino writing about GP Commissioning. The article in the Nuffield Trust Viewpoint series is mercifully free of political axe-grinding and makes some good points based on his...
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Don’t shout “man overboard” quite yet
June 4, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Foundation Trusts, News posts, NHS, patient participation, QIPP
Reading through the comments on the Future Forum website about choice and competition and accountability to patients, many of them make me want to weep. The now-closed “listening exercise” about NHS reforms has apparently drowned in a tsunami of misunderstanding, misinformation, half-truths...
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Whose consortium is it anyway? – our take on lay involvement in authorisation
May 30, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under Active citizens, commissioning, Local Authorities, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, Public Involvement
How can local lay people be engaged with the authorisation process for commissioning consortia? The Bill is silent on this point (which speaks volumes in itself), so we thought we’d fly a kite for our thoughts on how the National Commissioning Board (NCB) authorisation process with consortia...
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Just saying “no” won’t do
May 27, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Consultation, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, Public Involvement, Wandsworth
Yesterday about 85 people from around Wandsworth gathered with our pathfinder consortium leaders to discuss what good commissioning and meaningful patient and public participation could and should look like locally. There is no doubt local people are keen to be involved from the outset in the changes...
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LINks to Health Watch – hey presto?
May 21, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Complaint Handling, Dispute Resolution, Local Authorities, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, Public Involvement
Does it matter that England’s Local Involvement Networks (LINks) are in a transition period lasting at least twelve months to turn themselves into shiny, new organisations called Local Health Watch? Assuming we can avoid a re-run of discontinuity, demoralisation and loss of organisational memory...
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Patients as customers Prof Field?
May 17, 2011 by Andrew Craig
Filed under commissioning, Consultation, Foundation Trusts, Local Involvement Network, News posts, NHS, patient participation, Public Involvement
Just spent a frustrating couple of hours watching a live Q&A session on the NHS reforms and possible changes to the Health and Social Care Bill with Prof Steve Field (who started off by being an hour late arriving at the Guardian office venue). How depressing to hear him more or less dismiss patient...
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