The NHS is set to undergo a huge change in the way its services are delivered.
Currently, the NHS is organised into Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which plan and buy healthcare services for their local areas. In Cheshire and Merseyside there are nine CCGs, one for each borough, but they are set to be scrapped in favour of just one ICS (Integrated Care System) which will commission NHS services across the entire region of more than 2.5m people.
The move to an ICS was set to take place in April, but the bill is still going through parliament meaning it is set to be delayed until July. It is hoped that consolidating the different commissioning groups into one will help to share ideas across the region, tackle health inequalities and improve the lives of the poorest fastest.
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But some believe the way Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), which will take on many of the current functions of CCGs, will work allows for far greater private sector involvement in the running of the NHS. At today’s meeting of Wirral Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board, Labour councillor Yvonne Nolan said the ICS will work as an integrated system, with health and social care coming together, and will be able to offer a “comprehensive service managed locally”.
Simon Banks, Wirral CCG’s chief officer, said the new system will focus on social justice and health inequalities, which might lead to some differences in terms of how resources are targeted. Liberal Democrat councillor Phil Gilchrist said there were advantages to the new system, but the main problem was resources.
He said there are some things that will be better with democratic input we might not have had previously, meaning there were “certain aspects” of the plan he was looking forward to. But the Lib Dem group leader said the difficulty was working with a system where there are pressures on manpower and where it is difficult to recruit staff or maintain staff.
He added there were pressures throughout the system which were not entirely in the council’s hands, but that it could hope to influence. Fears the move to an ICS will lead to more privatisation were expressed by Greg Dropkin, from the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, in Wirral Council’s Partnerships Committee meeting on March 1.
Mr Dropkin said the private sector will not be barred from ICBs. He added they will be able to sit on committees and provider collaboratives, where private companies and NHS trusts come together and are able to carry out delegated functions of ICBs with delegated budgets.
But Mr Banks outlined the structure of the boards and said that at the moment the Cheshire and Merseyside constitution had no provision for private sector representation on the ICBs.
