The Health Committee, in its report on Commissioning which was published on 18 January, set out a number of issues connected to Commissioning on which it said it intended to undertake further work. The Committee would therefore welcome further submissions on these specific issues. Respondents need not necessarily comment on all the points listed.
Submissions should reach the Committee by noon on Monday 28 February.
The points listed in the Commissioning report as being issues the Committee wished to examine further are set out below as they appear in the report:
• We intend to examine further the assurance regime which it is proposed to establish around commissioning consortia in order to satisfy itself that the NHS Commissioning Board has sufficient authority to deliver its objectives defined in its Commissioning Outcomes Framework. (Paragraph 89)
• We intend to review the arrangements proposed in the Bill for defining the lines of accountability between the NHS Commissioning Board, the Department of Health and the Secretary of State to prevent potential future conflicts arising. (Paragraph 91)
• The Committee believes it is essential for clinical engagement in commissioning to draw from as wide a pool of practitioners as is possible in order to ensure that it delivers maximum benefits to patients. GPs have an essential role to play as the catalyst of this process, and under the terms of the Government’s changes they, through the commissioning consortia, will have the statutory responsibility for commissioning. They should, however, be seen as generalists who draw on specialist knowledge when required, not as the ultimate arbiters of all commissioning decisions. The Committee therefore intends to review the arrangements proposed for integrating the full range of clinical expertise into the commissioning process. (Paragraph 96)
• Although the Committee understands the value of the separation of the commissioner and provider functions it believes it is important that this function separation is not allowed to obstruct the development of high quality and cost effective service solutions. We therefore intend to review the arrangements proposed in the Bill for reconciling these conflicts. (Paragraph 102)
• The Committee agrees that local engagement with the commissioning of primary care services is important and therefore welcomes this development. The potential conflict of interest between consortia and local primary care providers does however remain. We therefore intend to review the arrangements proposed in the bill for the commissioning of primary care services. (Paragraph 104)
• The commissioning of services that either work across [health and social care] boundaries, or are intimately linked is therefore an issue to which the Committee attaches great importance, and we intend to review the effectiveness of the structures proposed in the Bill which are designed to safeguard co-operative arrangements which already exist and promote the development of new ones. (Paragraph 107)
• We intend to review the arrangements proposed in the Bill to enable commissioning consortia to address these issues [cross-area collaboration by consortia in reconfiguring services] effectively; this will include a review of the ability of the new system to encourage commissioning consortia to cooperate in achieving the benefits to patients which may be available from major service reconfiguration. (Paragraph 110)
• The Committee intends to review the arrangements proposed in the Bill for enabling consortia to reconcile this potential conflict [between patient choice and commissioning] by enhancing patient choice at the same time as delivering the consortium’s clinical and financial priorities. (Paragraph 115)
• The Committee does not find the current stance on patient and public engagement in commissioning persuasive. The National Health Service uses taxpayers’ resources to deliver a service in which a high proportion of citizens take a close interest both as taxpayers and actual or potential patients. While the Department may be right to point out that there is no special virtue in uniformity of structure, the Committee regards the principle that there should be greater accountability by commissioners for their commissioning decisions as important. We therefore intend to review the arrangements for local accountability proposed in the Bill. (Paragraph 118)
• The Government must support consortia and existing commissioning organisations to form clear and credible plans for debt eradication and for tackling structural deficits within their local health economy. The Committee intends to further review this issue in its further work. (Paragraph 123)
Guidance on submitting written evidence
It assists the Committee if those submitting written evidence adhere to the following guidelines:
Each submission should:
• state clearly who the submission is from, ie whether from yourself in a personal capacity (eg Submission from Miss Dee Dee Lee) or sent on behalf of an organisation (eg Submission from Insert Name Ltd)
• be no more than 3,000 words in length;
• as far as possible comprise a single document attachment to the email;
• begin with a short summary in bullet point form;
• have numbered paragraphs; and
• be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible (Reports are published in black and white).
A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to healthcommem@parliament.uk and have the ‘Name of the inquiry’ in the Subject line.
Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.
It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence would send their contact details separately in a covering email in a block of text laid out vertically (not horizontally). See example below:
eg: Miss Dee Dee Lee
Westminster House
7 Millbank
London
SW00 0XX
Tel: 0000 000 0000
Mob: 00000 000000
deedeelee1005@xxxxxxx.uk
You should also be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Though there is a strong preference for emailed submissions, those without access to a computer should send a hard copy to:
Committee Assistant
Health Committee
Committee Office
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA
• A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: Commons: Guide for Witnesses. Please also note that:
• Committees make public much of the evidence they receive during inquiries. If you do not wish your submission to be published, you must clearly say so. If you wish to include private or confidential information in your submission to the Committee, please contact the Clerk of the Committee to discuss this.
• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed submission, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
• Evidence submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
For up-to-date information on progress of the inquiry visit: http://www.parliament.uk/healthcom