WORK is underway in County Durham and Darlington in preparation for unprecedented health reforms that will pave the way for the new NHS to be safely under doctors’ orders.

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), led by local GPs and other health professionals, are poised to take over NHS management responsibilities from local Primary Care Trusts for the planning and purchasing of local health services.

Three CCGs will take responsibility for their defined populations: North Durham CCG, (Durham, Chester-le-Street and Derwentside working together as individual localities), Darlington CCG and Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield CCG.

They will each be overseen by CCG sub committees of the NHS County Durham and Darlington Cluster Board and nationally by a new NHS Commissioning Board until they are fully authorised in April.

One of the GPs leading the way in the North-East is Dr Stewart Findlay, senior partner of Bishopgate Medical Centre in Bishop Auckland.

Dr Findlay will head up a consortium of GPs and clinicians for Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield (DDES), managing an annual budget of £400m for a population of 290,000.

“It is an enormous responsibility but I’m looking forward to the challenge,”

said Dr Findlay.

“For many years clinicians have been increasingly frustrated by the seemingly slow progress made within the NHS and have expected the managers to understand – and be responsible for – clinical judgements.

In reality, only clinicians can make and take responsibility for such decisions.

“As health professionals we have now been given the opportunity to run the show ourselves.”

Despite concerns about the proposed reforms Dr Findlay insists patients should see improvements and have more involvement in the care they can expect from the NHS.

“The major changes people should see will be the benefits of having more of their health needs met in their own community,” said Dr Findlay.

“We want to bring more services into GP practices and community settings, to develop more local services and to encourage more patient and public involvement in order to deliver the best possible healthcare to our local populations.”

With a firm local focus for health improvement, the CCGs have the leadership and involvement of GPs in each of their practices, as well as strong partnership working with local partners and stakeholders.

“Having three CCGs across County Durham and Darlington will allow us to maintain a locality focus but provide greater economies of scale to commission services,” said Dr Findlay.

“The new reforms will allow us to commission and provide much more effective patient-centred ways of care in our local areas.

“They are really an extension of the changes that happened in the early 1990s when the then Conservative government introduced GP-led commissioning – known as fund holding – and an internal market to the NHS.

“The last Labour government built on this model by introducing practice based commissioning and so clinical commissioning naturally followed.

“With the new health bill, the buck will stop with the CCGs.

“As doctors and clinicians we have the best interests of our patients at heart and understand very well the quality of services that we expect for them.

“Every day we refer patients to our hospitals and get feedback from them when they are discharged, so we very quickly build up a picture of where services are good and where they are occasionally less good.

“That should allow us to use our commissioning budget to drive up the quality of services on behalf of our patients.

“I think it is an exciting time for the NHS. Our biggest challenges will be to involve patients more, to engage GPs and to spread innovative practice throughout our organisations.

“Our biggest reward will be seeing patients have a greater say in the provision they expect, GPs feeling that they can influence the services they commission and for all of us to see a real difference to the quality of healthcare that we provide to our local populations. The future of the NHS is in our hands.”

What the new Health and Social Care bill will mean at a glance:

  • Clinically-led commissioning;
  • Provider regulation to support innovative services;
  • A greater voice for patients;
  • A new focus for public health;
  • Greater accountability both locally and nationally;
  • Improving the quality of care;
  • Tackling inequalities in healthcare;
  • Promoting better integration of health and care services.
  • Health services in your area – pages 20 and 21.
  • Sumit focuses on the future – page 24.