Exclusive: CCG leaders favour integration over competition

A total of 116 CCG leaders from 101 organisations responded to the survey. Sixty-five per cent were GPs.

Forty-seven per cent were CCG chairs, 38 per cent were accountable officers, and the remaining 15 per cent were other senior executives or governing body members.

Asked to rate a set of possible methods for improving services, 96 per cent of the CCG leaders said they were likely to encourage increased integration of their existing providers in the next year.

A significant but smaller proportion - 50 per cent - said they were likely to make greater use of alternative providers and increased competition.

When asked to rate a series of potential blocks to their ability to improve services, 73 per cent of respondents said “requirements to introduce more competition and competitive procurement” were a barrier. Eighty-two per cent said the NHS “per treatment tariff system” - a commonly cited problem in creating a more seamless approach - was a barrier.

‘There’s still some lack of understanding about how beneficial competition can be in the right circumstances’

Just 23 per cent said “not enough opportunity to introduce competition and new providers” was a barrier.

Asked to rate potential steps for improving their effectiveness as a commissioner, 84 per cent said they would increase shared commissioning functions or pool budgets with a local authority.

NHS Commissioning Board national director of commissioning development Dame Barbara Hakin said the results might reflect the unjustified concern of some leaders that they would be forced to introduce competition in areas they did not want to.

“There’s still some lack of understanding about how beneficial competition can be in the right circumstances,” she said.

Several CCG leaders told HSJ that while they realised introducing competition was useful in some circumstances, they were more enthusiastic about working with existing providers.

NHS Vale of York CCG accountable officer Mark Hayes, a GP, said: “Competition has its place, but integration makes more sense if you want to have a seamless service.”

NHS Kingston CCG accountable officer David Smith, who is also Kingston Borough Council director of health and adult services, said the organisations wanted to commission a single existing social enterprise as their joint community and social care provider.

He said: “If you open it up to the market you can get a more fragmented service. We will get better outcomes and value if we work through a single provider.”

‘We will get better outcomes and value if we work through a single provider’

NHS Clinical Commissioners interim president Michael Dixon urged the commissioning board and Monitor not to force CCGs to use competition. He said: “Where you’ve got a reasonable service the best way of improving it and making it more cost effective is to integrate.

“I hope [Monitor] will get it right but NHSCC will be coming down like a tonne of bricks if they don’t.”

Royal College of GPs chair Clare Gerada said: “It is very positive news that GPs are focusing on joining things up rather than further fragmenting care.

“We need to work together - removing the barriers that promote fragmentation and increase costs, which the Health Act will do in spades.”