The current NHS Commissioning Board include Sir David Nicholson, who has apologised for the deaths numbering in the region of 400-1200 at Mid Staffs and who is alleged to have been warned by NHS whistleblower about serious patient safety issues, and Dame Barbara Hakin, “..who was then head of the East Midlands strategic health authority and is now national director for commissioning development at the NHS Commissioning Board, ordered him to meet the national targets regardless of demand.” The General Medical Council has launched an investigation into a complaint against national director for commissioning development Dame Barbara Hakin, according to the HSJ.
The UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH), part of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (London college), is the standard setting body and the leading professional body for public health specialists in the UK. It aims to advance the health of the population through three key areas of work: health promotion, health protection and healthcare improvement. In addition to maintaining professional and educational standards for specialists in public health, FPH advocates on key public health issues and provides practical information and guidance for public health professionals. The Faculty of Public Health, of the Royal College of Physicians, responded to a consultation on the document “Liberating the NHS: commissioning for patients”.
In their response, the Faculty of Public Health set out a very clear case of how public health professionals could and show be involved in commissioning, for example:
“Specialist commissioning should be integrated with the work of GP consortia by the establishment of national subgroups for the relevant specialities of the NHS Commissioning Board. The relevant National Clinical Directors should sit on these groups, and the groups should provide guidance for consortia. GP consortia should have leads for specialised commissioning who link up with the relevant clinical subgroups. These leads would meet regionally/subnationally and would engage with secondary care colleagues and public health specialists. Specialist public health and commissioning advice would also be essential to ensure that specialised commissioning is responsive to local need, is prioritised appropriately and takes into account the primary prevention aspects of the clinical conditions for which it is responsible; and to ensure that commissioning plans integrate prevention, primary and secondary healthcare and social care. Resource allocation decisions should be scrutinised to ensure that they are consistent with priorities for health and wellbeing. Specialist public health advice will ensure that only cost and clinically effective interventions are commissioned and that appropriate account is taken of overall population health.”
Indeed, in November 2012, the NHS Commissioning Board (NHS CB) and the Department of Health published their detailed agreement showing how the NHS CB will drive improvements in the health of England’s population through its commissioning of certain public health services. The agreement sets out the outcomes to be achieved in exercising these public health functions and provides ring fenced funding for the NHS CB to commission public health services. The services commissioned as part of this agreement are those where there is, for example, alignment with national clinical pathways and added value of central commissioning. Please refer to this document which details how public health functions to be exercised by the NHS Commissioning Board.
Whether you think the burden of opinion should be on the balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt, there is a strong arguable case that there should be a Director of Public Health on the NHS CB. However, bodies which might have protected against problems in national health policy, such as the Food Standards Agency, the Health Protection Agency, and the National Patient Safety Agency, are all being abolished. Also, the fate of the NHS Commissioning Board itself after 2015, a body which has been called “the biggest QUANGO ever“, is uncertain.
