25 Jan 2013

Talking CCG's and health....

Last Monday I spent several hours preparing a whole series of questions for the Scrutiny meeting looking at health....well to cut a long story short after conversations with the Monitoring Officer (that's the Council's legal bod) it became apparent that I perhaps should not ask certain questions as due to my work (which has some health funding) I might have an interest....after more discussions I felt I had to send apologies for the meeting as all the key questions seem to be ones that were off limits...

This whole process of declaring interest, in my view, needs relooking at - in this case I suspect I was overcautious - as regular readers will know I am particular re expense claims and declaring interests - I also don't accept a whole host of freebies from people trying to advertise on this blog - yes if I think a book I'm offered is good I'll mention it but I wont take the freebies....infact it might be fun one day to blog on all the strange things I've been offered over the years from cleaning products to weird plinky plonky music (very nice plinky plonky!)....anyway I digress....

Some of the questions I had planned were around privatisation of the health service - now surely that is a general public interest question? Well some of the areas I wanted to cover did get asked by others at the meeting - do see webcast: http://www.strouddc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/90852

My particular view is that in any review they should be considering keeping the services in house. All the evidence I have seen indicates that it should be entirely possible to keep them within the NHS.....David Lock QC argued that the High Court case last year shows that keeping services in the NHS without tendering, is an option that commissioners should always consider, first. And this promise of freedom not to have to offer services to the private sector, was extended to Clinical Commissioning Groups.

If not surely there is a danger of making the same mistakes that were made with community services last year? The public are clearly strongly against privatisation - the PCT itself admitted the results were ‘overwhelming’ with 91% of staff, and 96% of the public, voting for the services to be run by an NHS Trust rather than be put out to tender. I was wanting to hear more re the legal constraints as they viewed them about keeping within NHS - and how they planned consultations.

PCT/CCG are working so closely together that they are almost the same though CCGs do not take over formally until April. Savings can be made mainly through reducing inappropriate use of hospitals and improving care pathways. Again I was interested in how local communities, patients and service users could be involved in looking at this? In my view genuine partnership with communities is the only way to bring about the changes needed. There is a growing recognition that community input in decision-making can help promote health outcomes. However, the key to realising these health gains is giving communities real decision-making power. I've read some info regarding employing community commissioners, but I don't have a view on those - would be interested to hear what others think?

Anyhow there were lots more things to ask about Health and Wellbeing Boards, how to work with local Councils, joint commissioning/health & social care integration, the criminal abuse seen at Winterborne and what plans to tackle and how they can ensure health funding is planned so that  groups like for example Leckhampton Court where they do specialist palliative care for people with life threatening illnesses, can plan and ensure they continue their great work.....

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