No requirement to include doctors and nurses on boards

Although the government was urged to ensure that consortia obtained “all relevant multi-professional advice to inform commissioning decisions”, the Future Forum stopped short of compelling them to have nurse or hospital doctor representation on their boards.

Future forum lead on clinical advice and leadership and NHS East Midlands medical director Dr Kathy McLean said: “We heard that there should be involvement of a wide range of clinicians and others in the commissioning process. But we heard a strong view that we should not be going for tokenism.”

She said: “We don’t want to prescribe. There needs to be a requirement in the authorisation process and in the national commissioning board’s annual review [of consortia] to make sure there are the right skills there and [consortia] also take account of multi-professional clinicians. It’s an ongoing process to make sure of that.”

Professor Steve Field’s report to ministers also recommended that “multi-specialty clinical senates” were established to offer commissioning consortia advice.

His report stated: “Where commissioning consortia cannot demonstrate readiness to take on their new responsibilities they should not be allowed to do so.”

The Future Forum expressed concern about the variation in standards of continuing professional development, calling on the National Quality Board examining how the NHS could meet its constitutional pledge to provide staff with appropriate training.

Royal College of Nursing chief executive and general secretary Peter Carter said: “It is disappointing that the Future Forum appears not to have accepted the view of thousands of our members, who are calling for a mandatory requirement for nurses to sit on the board of every commissioning consortia.

“Nurses follow the patient throughout their care and have a unique range of skills and experience. The Government should enshrine this requirement in legislation when it responds tomorrow as the reality on the ground is that new commissioning consortia are currently being established at pace without nursing representation.”

Prime minister David Cameron last week said: “Hospital doctors and nurses will be involved in clinical commissioning.”