Clinical Commissioning Groups

(asked on 25th April 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to monitor the performance of clinical commissioning groups by incorporating patient experience and perspective for NHS Continuing Health Care.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 30th April 2018

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have a responsibility to engage with their local populations and seek patient views.

NHS England has assurance mechanisms in place to understand CCG compliance with the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare. NHS Continuing Healthcare has been part of mainstream assurance processes since 2016/17 by being included in the CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework. NHS England local teams use an assurance tool, Continuing Healthcare Assurance Tool, to assess CCGs’ compliance with the NHS England Operating Model for NHS Continuing Healthcare. NHS England is collecting benchmarking data at the CCG level on requests for local resolution for NHS Continuing Healthcare.

More broadly, the work of NHS England is focused on delivering better health services for our patients and the public and it is essential that this is based on a good understanding of what is important to them. NHS England and CCGs have legal duties as to public involvement and consultation in provision of health services and NHS England recently refreshed its statutory guidance for CCGs regarding patient and public participation, in consultation with local Healthwatch organisations. This guidance can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/patient-and-public-participation-guidance.pdf

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