The clinical networks set up to improve cancer care have seen their budget cut by 25% in three years, with a severe impact on their performance.

Projects such as accelerating cancer diagnosis – the kind of efficiencies praised by Sir David Nicholson in his NHS review – may not be possible in future.

Clinical networks to improve stroke and heart disease treatment have also been cut back, though less dramatically.

The 28 cancer networks and 28 cardiovascular networks will be amalgamated into 24 larger networks (12 of each type) after April 2013, with the cardiovascular networks also covering diabetes.

Funding for the cancer networks has been cut by 25%, with loss of 73 staff. The heart and stroke networks have lost 12% of their funding and 38 staff.

Shadow Care Minister Liz Kendall said the feedback from clinical networks revealed them to be “in chaos”.

She noted: “Ministers have repeatedly promised to protect the funding for clinical networks.”

The clinical networks guide and support service redesign to increase clinical effectiveness and efficiency – which, NHS Confederation leader Mike Farrar argued this year, is a principle to which the NHS only pays lip service.

The clinical networks reported the cancellation of programmes that have successfully supported doctors and nurses in the past, providing specialist input into challenging areas of NHS care.

A cancer specialist from Yorkshire commented that the new Yorkshire and Humber cancer network “will be too big to be able to reflect local capabilities and needs, yet too small to have the authority of national guidelines”.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, the National Director for Cancer, said the next few weeks would be unsettling and difficult for the cancer networks as services were cancelled and staff made redundant.

Four strategic clinical networks have been introduced by the NHS Commissioning Board Authority (NHSCBA) to improve health services to specific groups of patients.

The first four networks will focus on cancer, cardiovascular disease, maternity and children’s services and mental health, dementia and neurological conditions.

The NHSCBA said the networks will assist local commissioners to reduce “unwarranted variation in services and encourage innovation”.

They will exist for a period of five years and will be managed by 12 locally-based support teams.

The teams will build and oversee effective network arrangements locally and help networks develop an annual programme of quality improvement in services.

Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director, said it was important to retain the strategic clinical networks after the commissioning transition period had been completed. “We are keen to preserve things which we know have worked and worked well. There is a feeling networks have been instrumental in helping to improve care,” he said.

However, Neil Churchill, Chief Executive of Asthma UK, said the charity was dismayed that respiratory disease had been overlooked by the Commissioning Board Authority. “We are surprised and disappointed,” he said. “It is a national priority under the NHS Outcomes Framework and appears to be the only major area to have been overlooked.”

He added that the decision was a “lost opportunity to transform care in line with the Government’s own respiratory strategy”.

The Commissioning Board now plans to outline what it expects from each strategic clinical network and what targets they should aim for, by way of improvement programmes, when they are operational next year.

What does the ‘single operating model’ for primary care commissioning mean for GPs?

The NHS Commissioning Board Authority’s ‘single operating model’ for primary care commissioning represents a major step in defining the relationship between GPs and the new NHS. As such, it is essential reading for anyone with a stake in prescribing behaviours and, more widely, in patient pathways.

A major question posed by the Lansley reforms is: who should commission the commissioners? If GP-led groups are responsible for commissioning secondary care, who can commission primary care? The answer, the NHS Commissioning Board, was greeted with mistrust by many GPs who asked why they needed some Big Brother watching over the job they had always done.

In addition, the passage of the Health and Social Care Act left a lot of broken glass scattered through primary care. The relationship between clinical outcomes and money, the involvement of the private sector in the NHS and the apparent fragmentation of the health service are issues that divided
the GP profession.

So the single operating model has the task not only of outlining new clinical and business relationships, but of building professional bridges. The Board tackles this challenge by saying up front that it seeks to
achieve “the right balance between national consistency and local decision making”.

Unlike earlier documents describing the infrastructure of the new NHS, Securing excellence in commissioning primary care does not list concrete developments to be in place by April 2013. Rather, it outlines a pattern of relationships that will develop from that date, when the new single operating model
for primary care commissioning becomes operative. It represents the parts of the new
NHS working together with a clear goal of outcome improvement.

The commissioning challenge
According to Dame Barbara Hakin, National Director for Commissioning Development, the new system aims to “tackle unwarranted variation and take positive steps towards raising the overall standard of primary care”. The document notes that primary care, while accounting for only 15% of the NHS budget, has a
profound role in making “preventative interventions” and influencing all the care patients receive.

The challenge of replacing “many different systems” for primary care commissioning with “a single national
operating model” without losing “vital local responsiveness”, the Board says, depends on “establishing relationships and arrangements across the new organisations” – including CCGs, whose health strategies
will set the context for primary care.

The NHSCB will be responsible for planning, securing and monitoring primary care services. Its local area teams will manage the performance of GPs and other primary care providers (dentists, community pharmacists and opticians), and will help to support providers in difficulty and deal with major emergencies.

The local area teams will support patient “choice and control in designing services that respond to their needs”, focusing on “the basic service offer” (such as early diagnosis) to reduce variations and health inequalities. Likewise, they will support the development of “local area clinical leadership teams” that draw on the expertise of all types of primary care clinicians. Finally, their focus on patient outcomes means they will look for “improvement strategies” at all times.

All together now
Most primary care commissioning will take place through the Board’s local area teams working with CCGs, local authorities and health and wellbeing boards. The Board as a central authority will “ensure consistency” and provide the framework for performance management and quality assurance. Crucially, this system involves “fewer managerial resources” and “larger geographical footprints” than the previous system. It does not remove local initiative: it just removes the SHA and PCT management layer.

At the heart of the model are the common operating procedures for local area teams, of which the most important is “to standardise the performance management frameworks and processes at practice, provider and individual levels”. Managing variability and the healthcare market are also key priorities.

Commissioning support services may also assist local area teams: emphasis is placed on the value of
business intelligence in providing “a single flow of standardised information”, and the potential for CCGs to share support for primary care development and redesign with local area teams.

Micro commissioning
CCGs themselves will work closely with the NHSCB to review the “micro commissioning decisions” made by
GPs in “each referral and prescription”. The Board says that its work with CCGs has shown they can progress effectively together towards “quality improvement” through benchmarking, data sharing and peer review. It notes further that CCGs will be able to commission integrated “wrap-around” community-based services in which GP practices can participate, with care taken to manage conflicts of interest.

The local area teams will establish relationships with a range of partners, including CCGs, Local Healthwatch, health and wellbeing boards, local authorities, Public Health England local units and the CQC. Clinical networks will feed into the primary care system “with a particular focus on early diagnosis and timely treatment”. Public health commissioners will advise local area teams on priorities for the local
population, and work with them to develop health improvement initiatives that may include primary care.

The Board concludes: “During the next three to six months, we will fully explore all the interdependent relationships critical for the operating model and take any action necessary to ensure that they will work effectively.” It encourages discussion of the model within PCT clusters and feedback on
potential improvements.

A business network
The single operating model for primary care commissioning is not so much a ‘one size fits all’ as an ‘all things to all people’. It shows the old hierarchical NHS giving way to something much closer to a business network, with shared rules and goals but different cultures. The imprecision of the arrangements described displays the will to promote clinical innovation and business
development.

The emerging structure is designed to give GPs more confidence that they will be neither isolated nor controlled. Those who need guidance and support will receive it, while others will have the freedom to change treatment pathways and business models. This will help to defuse opposition to reform in the
profession, while setting the stage for further changes.

For pharma, the new model points to the development of a complex and flexible customer network with many points of contact. Key account managers are much concerned with how primary care operates and the factors influencing it. This model shows primary care in a dynamic field of NHS and other stakeholders, responding to ideas from all sides: an exciting prospect for suppliers.

The draft mandate for the NHS Commissioning Board (NHSCB) will require the Board to make CCG autonomy and patient choice its major priorities.

While drawing on the NHS Outcomes Framework, the draft mandate avoids setting objectives for specific clinical conditions, saying that CCGs should have the flexibility to identify local clinical priorities.

Clinical senates and clinical networks are identified as “sources of advice” for CCGs, who will be able to decide for themselves and source other advice providers.

The primary task of the NHSCB remains the authorisation of “as many CCGs as are willing and able” by April 2013.

Our NHS Care Objectives: A Draft Mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board outlines 22 objectives for the NHSCB for the two years from April 2013, as well as ‘ambitions’ for the decade following.

Launching the draft document, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “Today we will be laying the foundations of the new, more independent NHS” – meaning an NHS “free from constant political interference” and “tasked with continuously improving the care that patients receive”.

The document confirms the Quality Premium incentive scheme, a bonus payment rewarding CCGs who achieve a surplus on their annual budget. This incentive was heavily criticised by GPs during the ‘listening exercise’.

However, one objective that reflects feedback from GPs is to ensure that NHS commissioning supports the integration of care.

Objectives focused on patient choice include the availability of personal health budgets and the right of patients to choose another provider after waiting 18 weeks for elective treatment.

The final mandate will be published in the autumn.