World Class Commissioning
Gary Belfield, Director of Commissioning
"PCTs are responsible for spending over £70bn per year
on health care. By becoming world class commissioners PCTs will be the investors
of health striving to improve health outcomes for their local population. This is
a massive task and one that will have a profound impact on society. We need talented
people to work in this vital area and I would encourage you to consider PCTs as
an exciting and rewarding career opportunity."
PCTs have a new and challenging role focused on the identification and procurement
of services for their local population. These roles are vital to ensure that the
right services are delivered to the right people in the most cost efficient way.
The Department of Health has identified 5 key commissioning roles:
1. Assessing needs, reviewing provision and deciding priorities
- assessing the needs of our population
- gaining an excellent understanding of its expectations and wishes, and mapping
these against an evaluation of current service provision, including an assessment
of the structure of supply and the ability of patients to choose
- deciding local priorities for developing and transforming services
2. Designing services
- in partnership with practice-based commissioners, specifying the range,
nature and quality of services to be provided along different patient pathways,
in line with the White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say; drawing on evidence
of cost-effectiveness and best practice
- enabling provider innovation; and reflecting expected capacity requirements
3. Shaping the structure of supply
- by stimulating provider interest, deciding when to go to tender, and by
placing contracts
- the aims being (a) to promote patient choice and competition between providers
- and where that is not possible, to maximise contestability for supply; and (b)
to ensure services are joined-up for patients along pathways, through providers
working in partnership
- in discharging this aspect of commissioning, the PCT works closely with
relevant SHAs and other PCTs.
4. Managing demand for services and living within its cash-limited allocation
of resources, particularly through a comprehensive system of practice-based
commissioners
5. Performance-managing providers through contracts and wider relationships,
to ensure contract requirements are met; e.g. on national targets, quality and equity
of access, and taking systematic account of patient and practice feedback. The PCT
also regulates primary care performers.
In its newly revised Leadership Qualities Framework (LQF), the NHS Institute for
Innovation and Improvement suggests that commissioners need these qualities:
- Drive for improvement
- Holding to account
- Collaborative working
- Effective and strategic influencing
- Political astuteness
- Broad scanning
If you feel that you have a particular interest and the right skills for some of
these roles, please indicate this on your application form.
Read more:
Department of Health – Worldclass Commissioning website:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/
Download the Competencies Guidebook – get it from this site:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics
