HSJ has obtained the names of the 54 organisations that will spearhead the government’s plans to hand commissioning over to GP consortia.

The DH has said that the “pathfinder” consortia will test different design concepts and identify issues and areas of learning in the new commissioning structure.

The North West is the region with the largest number of pathfinder consortia with 12 and there are eight from both East of England and London. There are only three consortia each from East Midlands, West Midlands and the North East and only two from Yorkshire and The Humber.

HSJ analysis – based on the information obtained from primary care trusts in October – shows the consortia range in size from one consisting of just two practices and covering around 23,000 patients in Fleetwood, North Lancashire and one single practice consortium, the Red House Group Hertfordshire with just 18,900 patients, to the WyvernHealth.com consortia in Somerset which covers 75 GP practices and a population of over half a million.

A population the size of half a million would have an NHS commissioning budget of around £750m. However it still is not clear how much of the commissioning budget will be handed to consortia as a number of commissioning responsibilities will be centralised in the NHS commissioning board.

In a letter to strategic health authority chief executives in October, national managing director of commissioning development Barbara Hakin said: “The objective of pathfinders is to empower pioneering groups of GP practices that want to press ahead with commissioning care for patients.”

The letter said that consortia will take on additional responsibility for commissioning services in advance of the April 2013 time scale for consortia to take full responsibility for commissioning.

 

East of England:

CATCH (Cambridgeshire)

East Suffolk Federation

Fortis Group

Health East CIC, Great Yarmouth and Waveney

Hunts Health

Ipscom (Ipswich)

The Red House Group Hertfordshire

 

East Midlands:

Principia

Bassetlaw Commissioning organisation

Nene Community Interest Company

 

London:

Bexley Clinical Cabinet

Ealing Commissioning Consortia

Great West Commissioning Consortium

Kingston Consortium

Newham Health Partnership

Redbridge

Southwark Health Commissioning

The Sutton Consortium

 

North East:

Newcastle Bridges GP consortia

Langbaurgh

County Durham

 

North West:

Cumbria Senate

Salford PBC Consortium

Stockport Managed Care

Manchester (three consortia: north, central and south)

West Cheshire Consortium

Wirral GP Consortium

Eastern Cheshire Commissioning Consortium

Trafford Commissioning Consortium

Fleetwood Community Commissioning Group

Wirral NHS Alliance

 

South Central:

Buckinghamshire

South East Hampshire

Bracknell Forest

South Reading

Basingstoke

Oxfordshire

 

South East Coast:

North West Sussex Association of Commissioning Consortia

Coastal West Sussex Federation

Surrey Health

Thames Medical

Guildford and Waverley

Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley

 

South West:

Baywide GPCC Ltd

Sentinel Healthcare Southwest Community Interest Company

Wyvernhealth.com

South Glos Consortium Ltd

 

West Midlands:

South Birmingham integrated clinical commission consortium

Dudley GP Commissioning Consortium

Herefordshire GP Commissioning Consortium

 

Yorkshire and The Humber:

Doncaster Commissioning Consortium

North East Lincolnshire Commissioning Consortium

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