NHS commissioning support organisations will need to demonstrate they have clinical commissioning groups prepared to buy from them if they are to survive after April 2013, the Department of Health has said.
Dame Barbara Hakin, national managing director of commissioning development, told a webinar last week that from April 2013 CCGs would be free to decide where they got commissioning support from.
She confirmed that proposals are being considered for commissioning support units to be hosted by the NHS Commissioning Board for the first two or three years after 2013 to enable them to become established and deliver a good service to their customers.
But she added: “The emphasis on that is that this is a service for customers and CSOs will only be hosted by the board if the board feels that these organisations are viable.”
Dame Barbara said CSOs would need to demonstrate to the NHS CB that “they do things in a business like way” and deliver economies of scale.
She added: “Local CCGs’ views and other CCGs’ views on whether they are going to buy those services from these CSUs will be key to the hosting decision.”
Dame Barbara told the webinar hosted by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement that central thinking on commissioning support had evolved.
She said the Health and Social Care Bill proposed that commissioning support would not be housed anywhere in the NHS unless individuals were directly employed by CCGs.
She explained: “We felt it was unreasonable that NHS staff should be able to become social enterprises or free standing or working within independent companies that early.”
However, she said her own view was that even the biggest CCG would need some outside commissioning support to get economies of scale. The current proposal is that NHS commissioning support should be hosted by the NHS CB initially.
Some CCGs have reported that they have faced pressure to stick with NHS organisations for commissioning support because of the potential large redundancy costs for the NHS if they look elsewhere.
However, some have issued tenders indicating that they hope to bring in private sector expertise from the outset.
Hakin insisted that CCGs would have free choice. She added: “It has been very clear from the outset that with effect from April 2013 once authorised and once statutory bodies it will be for CCGs to determine from where they buy their commissioning support.”