STRUCTURE: The emerging single clinical commissioning group in Barnsley - which is significantly behind development in most of the country - looks set to be handed delegated budgets and responsibility.

GPs in Barnsley declined to agree to a single CCG until spring this year. Previously some were seeking to form very small groups in which practices were not all neighbouring.

However, it has now appointed a designate accountable officer - Mark Wilkinson, previously NHS North West director of life sciences innovation. The CCG is also likely to be given delegated responsibility for budgets by the South Yorkshire primary care trust cluster in coming weeks. A cluster board paper says the CCG was due to be tested and a decision made this month.

The other CCGs in the PCT cluster were handed this responsibility in October 2011, about the same time as much of the rest of the country.

It has also been confirmed the CCG will submit to be authorised by the NHS Commissioning Board in the fourth wave of the authorisation process. Because of the delay in its progress it is highly likely to have significant conditions put on its authorisation.

Helen Bellairs, formerly NHS Western Cheshire chief executive and now a management consultant, has been working as interim programme director for the CCG since June, overseeing development. A possible outcome of the authorisation process is that the CCG is required to employ specific individuals to support its development.

Source

Board paper

Source date

September 2012

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