Jeremy Hunt is to announce today that local healthcare groups will be awarded ratings from next June onwards. It is hoped that this will highlight those local groups that are failing to meet standards and ‘shock’ them into improving by public pressure.
The plan to award these ratings is in its early stages of development and what Jeremy Hunt will announce today represents an intention to carry out these ratings. The move is intended to give the public more information about their local health services and provide greater transparency throughout the NHS.
Of the announcement Dr Steve Kell, the co-chair of NHS Clinical Commissioners and chair of NHS Bassetlaw CCG said: “We agree that patients and local people should have more information about those who are accountable for buying local healthcare services. Bringing in expert moderation as part of the overall process should provide further reassurance to the public and patients.”
Such is the complexity of the work that clinical commissioning groups do providing a single rating could potentially ‘dumb down’ the complex and challenging activities they undertake. CCGs are hostage to the fortune of services within their given area hence the ratings that occur at trust level and below. NHS England already provide the ability to compare CCG’s performance against others and the introduction of ratings could be seen as the next step.
There doesn’t appear to be much offered in the way of retribution for low rated CCG’s by Jeremy Hunt though we await for the logistics of the process to be fleshed out in the coming months.
