Struggling CCG bids to resolve 'financial crisis' with service review

Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group will review the clinical and financial sustainability of various services including elective orthopaedics, clinical variation in emergency admissions, community services and midwife led maternity units.

The CCG has been in special measures since December 2015 and under NHS England legal directions since April 2016. It was rated inadequate last July.

In a statement, published on 8 February, the CCG said: “Shropshire CCG clinicians are determined to resolve the financial crisis facing the NHS in Shropshire. They are determined to do this in a way that improves outcomes for patients and provides better value for money.”

The CCG will be carrying out the review itself, however the work will be undertaken with its Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin sustainability and transformation plan partners.

HSJ understands the review is separate to the Future Fit programme, which looks at the reconfiguration of acute emergency services across the region.

A CCG spokesman said the review into emergency admissions would look at why some GP practices have far more patients admitted to hospital as an emergency compared to others.

The areas the CCG is set to review are:

• elective orthopaedics;
• complex care;
• clinical variation in emergency admissions;
• procedures of limited clinical value;
• clinical variation in prescribing; and
• community services including midwife led maternity units.

Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin STP was updated last week to reflect how the footprint will address Shropshire CCG’s deficit.

The new STP document also reveals that it will commission a review into orthopaedic and musculoskeletal services across the region, as it claims it commissions more of these services than in the rest of England.

CCG chair Julian Povey said: “As health leaders we need to spend the money we are allocated to best meet the ever increasing demands of a growing population. As a result we have to look at new ways of working as well as exploring how we can us our resources wisely.

“This is the first phase of our programme and more details will be available over the coming weeks and months.

“While we will be undertaking a review of all the areas we commission this is in order to ensure that services are providing the right outcomes and value for money for Shropshire people.”