Call for information investment in PBC groups

The NHS Alliance is calling for practice-based commissioning groups to be given the money to fund their own information needs.

The Alliance, which represents PCTs and GP practices, has claimed that PCTs’ failure to provide GP practices with accurate and meaningful data has been sabotaging PBC.

In a new policy document, A Vision for Practice Based Commissioning, the NHS Alliance argues that PBC clusters should now be given the funds to pay for their own information and management support.

It says PBC should be given control of the financial resources needed to meet their basic commissioning needs and be able to employ staff under NHS terms and conditions if necessary.

Dr David Jenner, PBC Federation joint lead and a member of the NHS Alliance national executive, said the Alliance was pleased that Lord Darzi had pledged to improvement information, management and financial support to PBC clusters in his NHS Next Stage Review.

Dr Jenner added: “PBC has been hamstrung by inadequate, late and often inaccurate management support and information. It has been like Marks and Spencer not knowing what their suppliers were delivering nor how much it costs. No-one can operate effectively in that situation.”

The Department of Health’s most recent survey of PBC groups, published in April, showed that four out of ten practices rated the quality of information they received for PBC as poor or very poor and that practice satisfaction with the quality of information had declined slightly since the last quarterly survey.

The NHS Alliance document calls for a clear action plan to develop PBC with PBC clusters at the frontline of the NHS given access to the ‘innovation funds’ promised in the Darzi report.

It says PBC groups should be given greater control of resources and work to agreements that specify outcomes rather than processes. It also calls on each SHA to set up a clinician-led PBC development unit and include primary care clinicians in key leadership roles.

Dr Jenner added: “We need to make sure SHAs are fully behind practice based commissioning. They can make or break it – but without input from primary care clinicians, they could too easily achieve the latter while aiming for the former. PBC depends on genuine collaboration between clinicians and managers, not just at the PCT level, but in SHAs too.”

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