Doctors and health managers from across the Vale of York have welcomed the decision to authorise NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) as a statutory commissioner of healthcare services from April 2013.

NHS Vale of York CCG is one of 62 shadow organisations to receive the outcome of their applications for authorisation from the NHS Commissioning Board (NHS CB) today. Following rigorous assessment against 119 different criteria, the CCG has been authorised with nine conditions which are linked to issues including capacity, secondary care involvement, and the historic deficit which it will inherit from the outgoing Primary Care Trust, NHS North Yorkshire and York, on 1st April.

Dr Mark Hayes, Chief Clinical Officer for NHS Vale of York CCG says:

“We welcome the Commissioning Board’s decision to authorise NHS Vale of York CCG. We fully expected to receive a handful of conditions and feel these are reasonable in light of our current stage of development and given the history of the area, particularly in relation to finance.

“We have nine conditions in total, and we will continue working to see that each of these are removed as soon as possible. Realistically, we know that some of this will take time to achieve but in other areas, such as the involvement of clinical professionals from other parts of the health service, we are already making progress and in fact we will be welcoming a secondary care doctor onto our Shadow Governing Body next month.

“We’re very excited about our future as a commissioner and we are keen to make a positive difference to patients and to the way our local health and social care systems work together. We know we have challenges and we welcome the support which the Commissioning Board will shortly be providing us with. We want our residents to be confident in our ability to manage these challenges going forward and to make the right decisions on their behalf, and so we are looking forward to developing our plans further and realising our vision of delivering the best health and wellbeing for everyone in the Vale of York,”

The decision to authorise NHS Vale of York CCG means that it will become the statutory NHS commissioning body for the area in April this year, taking on formal commissioning responsibilities for a range of health services, including mental health and hospital care.

Whilst all CCGs authorised with conditions will receive some formal support to ensure they are meet all the requirements going forward, NHS Vale of York CCG will receive a higher level of support in four out of the nine areas, specifically relating to planning, finance and capacity issues, and this will be underpinned by legal directions.

All conditions imposed by the NHS CB will be reviewed prior to 31 March 2013 and quarterly thereafter. The CCG can apply at any time to have a condition or direction varied or removed, and any such applications will be considered by the NHS CB CCG authorisation sub-committee.

NOTES TO EDITOR
Vale of York CCG represents patients registered with 35 GP practices located in places such York, Selby, Tadcaster, Easingwold, Pocklington and parts of Ryedale.
NHS Vale of York CCG has been ‘Authorised with conditions’, the definition of which is:

“If the CCG has not fully satisfied the NHS CB that it meets all the thresholds for authorisation, the Board may give it conditional authorisation by setting conditions or directing the CCG as to how it carries out any of its functions. Conditions or directions will be specific to the particular criteria that have not been satisfied, and proportionate to the level of risk associated with the relevant function.”
                                                                  (NHS Commissioning Board)

The specific areas where NHS vale of York CCG has had conditions imposed are:

Criteria	14C (2)14C Ref.	Proposed condition	Support level
1.3A	E,F	Provide evidence that arrangements are in place for CCG to involve and seek advice from healthcare professionals from secondary, community, mental health, learning disabilities and social care	II
1.3B	F	Governing body must include nurse and secondary care doctor	I
3.1.1B	E	CCG must have a clear and credible integrated plan that meets authorisation requirements	IV
3.1.1C	E	CCG must have detailed financial plan that delivers financial balance, sets out how it will manage within its management allowance, and is integrated with the commissioning plan	IV
3.1.1D	E	Demonstrate that QIPP is integrated within all plans and clearly explain any changes to existing QIPP plans	IV
4.3.1C	A,E	Demonstrate how proposed staff resource and any contracted commissioning support will provide capacity and capability to deliver its full range of responsibilities	IV
5.3B	A,E	Provide evidence that clear line of accountability for safeguarding is reflected in CCG governance arrangements, and CCG has arrangements in place to co-operate with the local authority in the operation if the local Safeguarding Children Board and the Safeguarding Adults Board	I
5.3D	E	Provide evidence that the CCG has a safeguarding adults lead and a lead for the Mental Capacity Act, supported by the relevant policies and training	I
6.4G	F	CCG to evidence that senior in-house management roles in CCG provide adequate capacity and capability to maintain strategic oversight with available resources	I

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