In May 2018, NHS England announced that Gloucestershire was to become 1 of only 14 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) across the country.
The CCG working together as a member of an Integrated Care System
This is welcome recognition of what we have achieved and what we are committed to deliver in the future – truly integrated (joined up) health and social care serving users, carers and communities better and responding to the challenges of the future. The NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group Accountable Officer is the ICS Lead.
‘One Gloucestershire’ is the working name given to the partnership between the county’s NHS and care organisations (NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group; Primary Care (GP) Providers; Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust; Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust; and Gloucestershire County Council) to help keep people healthy, support active communities and ensure high quality, joined up care when needed. To read more about One Gloucestershire see www.onegloucestershire.net
The CCG working together with partners
The CCG works with a wide range of partners from statutory, voluntary and community organisations. These key relationships are shown in the image below which can be viewed at a larger scale by clicking on the image:
Providing firm foundations for the development of better future services
Building strong and sustainable relationships and engaging in open conversations can avoid surprises, build trust, confidence and credibility and engender mutual respect.
[nhs-accordion name=”1. Key opinion formers”]
Including public opinions in health and care strategy and planning is of crucial importance to the CCG. Shared decision making with communities ensures that services meet the needs of those who are using them. It is crucial to seek and listen to a broad range of patient, carer, public and staff opinions. It is important to also make connections with others, such as elected representatives and the local media, who can reach wider audiences.
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[nhs-accordion name=”2. Primary Care and Patient Participation Groups (PPG)”]
The CCG has 74 member GP practices, each with its own PPG. Gloucestershire GP practices have recently come together into 6 Integrated Locality Partnerships dividing into 14 Primary Care Networks. Views from patients and practice staff shape the development of services at a county, locality, network and individual practice level. The CCG Primary Care Contracting and Locality Teams, working with the CCG Engagement and Communications Team, support engagement across Primary Care.
The Countywide PPG Network meets four times a year. Find out more here.
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[nhs-accordion name=”3.Regulators / Advisors”]
The CCG works closely with regulators and advisors at a national, regional and local level.
Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Locally the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) members, all locally elected councillors, take a particular interest in the CCG’s work to involve local people in the development of better future services. Further information, including links to meeting papers is available here.
Under the Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013, the HCOSC exercise the county council’s role:
- in reviewing and scrutinising matters relating to the planning, provision of health and care services, and
- in commenting on or making a recommendation in relation to proposals for a substantial development or variation to these services.
NHS partners have recently agreed how they will work together with the HOSC to determine requirements for public consultation about potential service changes and the role of scrutiny. See the Memorandum of understanding here.
Gloucestershire Health and Wellbeing Board
Health and Wellbeing Boards were formally established on April 1st 2012 as part of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) and became statutory bodies from April 1st 2013.
Gloucestershire Health and Wellbeing Board leads on improving the co-ordination of commissioning across Health, Social Care and Public Health services and brings together elected members, leaders from the NHS, social care, Police and the voluntary and community sector to work together and support one another to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population and reduce health inequalities. Further information is available here
Healthwatch Gloucestershire
Healthwatch Gloucestershire is the county’s independent health and social care champion. It exists to ensure that people are at the heart of care.
The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 established the requirement for there to be a Healthwatch organisation in every local authority area across England. Each one is a key part of its local community, and works in partnership with other organisations in its area. For Healthwatch Gloucestershire, this includes Gloucestershire County Council, NHS organisations, local hospitals and voluntary organisations.
Dedicated teams of staff and volunteers listen to what people like about local health and care services, and what could be improved. These views are then shared with decision-making organisations, so together a real difference can be made.
We are delighted to work with Healthwatch Gloucestershire to ensure that the voice of our local communities is reflected in our work. Healthwatch Gloucestershire has:
- representation on many of our programme and project groups;
- co-produced an engagement facilitation tool
- supports the production of patient information through their Readers’ Panel
Healthwatch and the CCG teamed up recently to collect views across the county about the NHS Long Term Plan, read more here.
Working together, Healthwatch Gloucestershire and the CCG have developed a toolkit to support Patient Participation Groups to engage with their local communities. It’s called Facilitating Feedback.
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[nhs-accordion name=”4. NHS funded service providers”]
The CCG works with service providers to ensure that the views of their service users influence the quality of future services. To see the process for how patient experience feedback is used across the CCG to assure the quality of provider services click here.
All organisations providing NHS services regularly collect feedback from service users; and this information is routinely reviewed by the CCG. Providers’ publish annual Quality Accounts, which the CCG review and our comments are published.
Quality Accounts 2018/19
- Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- 2gether NHS Foundation Trust*
- Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust*
*Please note that since the last set of Quality Accounts were published, 2gether NHS Foundation Trust and Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust have merged to become Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust.
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[nhs-accordion name=”5. Voluntary and Community Sector involvement at the CCG”]
The CCG works closely with local voluntary and community groups. We regularly attend ‘Know your patch’ meetings across the county to talk to members about current local health services and involve them in shaping future services.
Recently we have worked with Inclusion Gloucestershire a local user-led organisation which model places ‘experts by experience’ at the centre of what they do, to recruit and support individuals from seldom heard groups to attend engagement events co-produced between Inclusion Gloucestershire and the CCG to ensure that they were as inclusive and accessible as possible.
You can read more about Inclusions Gloucestershire’s involvement here
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[nhs-accordion name=”6. Lay involvement at the CCG”]
Lay people are members of the CCG Governing Body, Primary Care Commissioning Committee and Quality and Governance Committee. Alan Elkin and Joanna Davies take a special interest in patient and public engagement: find out more about them here.
Lay Champions are involved with all Clinical Programme Groups and Reference Groups.
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[nhs-accordion name=”7. GP involvement at the CCG”]
NHS Gloucestershire CCG is a clinically led membership organisation (all 74 GP practices in Gloucestershire are members) responsible for commissioning (buying) local NHS services to meet the needs of local people. GPs are members of the CCG Governing Body, Primary Care Commissioning Committee and Quality and Governance Committee. GPs chair all Clinical Programme Groups.
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[nhs-accordion name=”8. Commissioners”]
Commissioning is the process of planning, agreeing, buying and monitoring healthcare provision in order to meet the needs of patients in England. This involves commissioning or developing services from NHS providers, and also buying in services from private providers.
There are a number of different organisations that are responsible for commissioning services across the NHS for England’s population., Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have the largest share of the total NHS budget and are responsible for commissioning a wide range of services relating to, mental health, community and hospital services and primary care.
Led by General Practitioners, and supported by a range of other healthcare professionals, CCGs work closely with a range of public and private bodies, including local authorities and the voluntary sector, to plan, commission and deliver services. This includes a wide range of services, from emergency and urgent care through maternity and end of life care.
NHS Gloucestershire CCG works closely with other CCGs on our borders in England e.g. Wiltshire, and we work with the Anuerin Bevan Health Board on our border with Wales.
NHS England is responsible for making sure that all NHS organisations discharge their commissioning responsibilities appropriately, and also work closely with CCGs and a range of other providers on specialist commissioning services.
Local Authorities are responsible for commissioning social care (adults and children’s) and public health services.
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