The organisation set up to support the capital’s primary care trust commissioners is looking to offer its services beyond London, its chair has told HSJ.
Commissioning Support for London was created in April 2009 and is funded by the 31 PCTs in the capital. It has a workforce of around 220 people.
CSL executive chair Sarah Crowther said that with the planned abolition of PCTs from 2013 the organisation would change its business model to one charging GP consortia for its support services.
She also said that while a short term goal was to “entrench” its core business in London, it would in future hope to sell its products and services to GP consortia across the country.
She said: “The tools and services are absolutely going to be of interest we hope to GP consortia elsewhere.”
Ms Crowther said the organisation would focus on its data intelligence work, and stop doing some broader parts of its portfolio that were likely to duplicate GPs’ clinical knowledge.
She highlighted CSL’s claims management toolkit, which can be used to identify where acute services have been commissioned inappropriately, as a service the organisation would be seeking to develop for GP consortia. For 2009-10, CSL claims the toolkit identified £50m worth of activity where the wrong service might have been charged for and £61m where the wrong PCT might have been charged, from a total of £3bn.
The organisation has yet to decide on how to charge. Options include a subscription model, or cost per product or use of product.
Ms Crowther acknowledged CSL could find itself in a crowded market, with competition from the private sector and also potentially from former PCTs themselves.
She said: “We’re not going to be the only player in the market. We’re up for that.
“We’re going to be the leanest, most efficient organisation we can be.”
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