Agenda item

To receive a report from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on the performance of the CCG including an overview of the year to date.

Mr R Murphy, Interim Local Chief Officer (Huntingdonshire System) will be in attendance for this item.

30 Minutes.

The Chairman welcomed Mr I Weller and Mr K Poyntz from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group to the meeting to assist the Panel in its consideration of this item.

With the assistance of the 2014/2015 Integrated Delivery Report produced by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) the Panel received a presentation from Mr I Weller and Mr K Poyntz and proceeded to discuss the contents and ask questions thereon.

As background and in general terms, the Panel was advised that the Primary Care Trust had been replaced by the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).  Local Commissioning Groups (LCG) comprised general practices which had come together to commission or buy services for local residents. There were two LCGs in Huntingdonshire: Hunts Care Partners and Hunts Health.

Mr Weller described the older people’s programme, one of the priorities identified by the CCG.  He added that the CCG had launched a procurement process to attract bidders to deliver an integrated older peoples’ and adult community services contract for those aged over 65 and that the three short-listed submissions received would be evaluated.  A decision on the preferred bidder would be announced by the end of September with the view to a start date for the contract of 1st April 2015.  Coronary Heart Disease and End of Life Care were the other priorities of the CCG.

In response to questions regarding the timescale between the appointment of the preferred bidder and the start of the contract, Mr Weller explained that the start date for the contract had been delayed until April 2015 to give the appointed bidder additional time to mobilise their services and to retain the current process in place during a critical time of year for the elderly.  He also confirmed that useful information had been received during the bidding process, which could be used to inform the design of services for all patients and not just the elderly. 

Mr Weller took the opportunity to draw attention to the “Health Economy”, the shortfall in funding for Cambridgeshire and key work being undertaken to examine options around clinical and design initiatives to seek to reduce expenditure and establish a sustainable way forward in the future.  Updates on progress of this work would be reported to the Panel.  Following questions, Mr Weller concluded by stating that whilst there was no obvious solution to achieving savings, the quality of care and patient services would not be compromised.

Mr Poyntz guided the Panel through the Integrated Delivery Report, which identified those areas of concern that the CCG would want LCGs to discuss.

National standards were reflected in contracts held with all key providers and the delivery reports identified areas in which the provider appeared to be under-performing.  As an example, Mr Poyntz drew attention to the number of individuals arriving at CUHFT (Addenbrookes) and the challenge that the turnaround time of four hours was presenting to that hospital.  Hinchingbrooke Hospital had experienced similar problems but had introduced measures to ensure that it was no longer a key area of concern.  It was confirmed that learning experiences were shared.

The Panel requested that, in future, a glossary of all abbreviations used to describe services was provided to ease their understanding of the report.

In response to questions, Members were advised of the ways in which providers would be made accountable should they fail to meet the wider range of annual standards.  At most, the Panel understood that serious failure could result in the imposition of a remedial action plan and a significant financial penalty.  Given concern that these penalties might have an impact on patient care, Mr Poyntz explained that they formed part of a compulsory national scale, which had been established to ensure providers took the necessary action to prevent failures from re-occurring.  In response to further questions, Mr Poyntz agreed to reconsider the wording of some of the text on page 18 of the document referring to cancer waits. He explained that it was not possible for services to be available at all hospitals and that it was preferable to concentrate some activities at specialist hospitals as this was likely to result in better outcomes for patients.

In thanking the speakers for their attendance, Mr Weller suggested that it would be useful for the Panel to receive a presentation in the future on hospital accountability.