NHS announces big shake-up in way health services are managed
NHS CHIEFS have ordered another key shake-up in the region ahead of sweeping changes designed to secure the long-term future of health services.
The move will see the clinical commissioning group (CCG) covering Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby transferred into the Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership.
It will significantly widen the scope of the new integrated care system (ICS) designed to take an overarching view of NHS services in an area running 150 miles from Cleethorpes along the east coast to rural communities in the Dales.
The partnership, part of a new wave of systems across the country, is planning to go live next year joining two others covering South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw and West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
NHS leaders have given the systems a key role organising under-pressure services, tackling workforce shortages and sorting out serious financial problems in moves designed to end competition in the NHS and introduce more collaboration between rival organisations, including local authorities.
However, the arrangements in North Yorkshire were the most complicated in the country as it was covered by three of the new systems, with the Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby commissioning group working in an integrated care system covering the North-East and Cumbria stretching from Thirsk to the Scottish borders.
The move will ease the difficulties ahead of the creation of a new North Yorkshire commissioning group from April although it complicates arrangements with the main provider of acute hospital services in Hambleton and Richmondshire, based in Middlesbrough.
In a statement, NHS officials said the new North Yorkshire commissioning group would be a member of two integrated care systems instead of three. “The CCG will continue to be involved in and influence commissioning and contractual flows for acute services in the North East for the local population,” said a spokesman.
The move is also likely to improve joint working with North Yorkshire County Council, which had expressed concerns over dealing with three integrated care systems. Most local authorities in England will only deal with one.
From April, six care commissioning groups are due to operate in the Humber, Coast and Vale partnership but this is also likely to be reduced as part of moves towards greater collaboration.
Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire commissioning groups are being run by the same leader from this month while a review of management arrangements is carried out.
Health chiefs in the Humber, Coast and Vale partnership face the most intractable problems in Yorkshire’s NHS.
A major review of hospital services is underway in Scarborough and another is being carried out covering services on both banks of the Humber.
Health systems covering the Vale of York, Scarborough and Ryedale and northern Lincolnshire are both deeply in the red and will continue to run up huge losses without major changes to the delivery of care.
Details of how the system plans to tackle its financial, performance and workforce problems are due to be set out in a five-year plan drawn up by officials in recent months as part of a national NHS programme although key details about the shape of future hospital services have yet to be agreed.
The move is also likely to improve joint working with North Yorkshire County Council.