Making commissioning effective in the reformed NHS in England

Successive Department of Health (DH) initiatives have sought to achieve widespread, sustained service reconfiguration in the NHS, aiming to deliver patient-centred services closer to where people live and work. This has proven to be extremely challenging, and the DH has concluded that fundamental reforms to NHS commissioning are necessary to drive change. Effective commissioning will assure service users and tax payers that those who configure and contract health services on their behalf are doing so in a manner that achieves the best possible health outcomes and provides value for money. But what is effective commissioning: what does it look like? This is the question the Health Policy Forum recently asked the Health Services Management Centre and the King’s Fund to investigate. The resulting report 'Making commissioning effective in the reformed NHS in England' will enable commissioners to benchmark and help Strategic Health Authorities and others to performance manage commissioners. We believe it constitutes a useful contribution to the ongoing debate on NHS reform.

(Published December 06, 54 pages)