Issue - meetings

Report of the Chair of the Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) updating the Committee on the developments regarding clinical commissioning, since the last update in February 2011, attached.

The Committee received and commented on the report and presentation of Dr Steve Townsend, Chair of the Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group and Sandy Hogg, Executive Director, NHS Southampton City, updating members on the developments regarding clinical commissioning since they last discussed in February 2011.  (Copy of the report circulated with the agenda and appended to the signed minutes).

The main points from the report and presentation included the following:-

• Primary Care Trusts (PCT’s) and Health Authorities would be disbanded by April 2013 and replaced by Clinical Commissioning Groups and the NHS Commissioning Board with Local Health and Wellbeing Boards being set up to co-ordinate healthcare activity with the aim of making the NHS more accountable to the communities it served.
• Southampton City PCT became part of the SHIP (Southampton, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Portsmouth) cluster in June 2011which is a subcommittee of the four PCT’s.  The Clinical Commissioning Group is a subcommittee of the cluster.
• In order for Southampton City CCG to have the maximum permissible delegated responsibility from the SHIP cluster, an application to  be authorised is required during Summer 2012.  There will be further Board election early next year to ensure that there would be a stable leadership during this period.
• One of the biggest challenges for CCG’s was their capacity and capability to undertake the amount of work required in the development process within the stipulated timeframes.
• The importance of  broadening the scope of CCG’s to include other areas such as social services, children’s services, housing and other related areas impacting on health.
• The Health and Wellbeing Board will be a statutory Board responsible for ensuring that the JSNA was effectively carried into clinical commissioning and the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was responsible for scrutinising the decisions taken by the board.  These two bodies could not be combined as there would be a conflict of interests.

RESOLVED

(i)  that the report and presentation detailing the progress towards becoming a statutory Clinical Commissioning Group was noted;  and

(ii)  that the Committee supported the Clinical Commissioning Group’s application to the NHS Commissioning Board to begin the process for authorisation.