Clinical commissioning in West Sussex
As part of the proposed Health and Social Care Bill, clinical commissioning groups will take on responsibility for local health service commissioning from April 2013. Read more here about what is happening in West Sussex.
By April 2013 clinical commissioning groups will take on responsibility for health care budgets.
What is happening in West Sussex?
There are currently three clinical commissioning groups in West Sussex.
- Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
- Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group
- Horsham and Mid Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
They are currently operating as sub-committees of NHS Sussex.
Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
Coastal West Sussex CCG brings together five localities representing Adur, Arun, Cissbury (Worthing), ARCH (Chichester and Bognor Regis) and Chanctonbury.
Together, Coastal West Sussex covers 56 practices with a registered population of 482,100 people.
Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group
Brings together 13 practices and focuses on the Crawley locality.
Horsham and Mid Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group
The Horsham and Mid Sussex CCG brings together the two localities of Horsham and Mid Sussex, and covers 23 practices.
What will Clinical Commissioning Groups do?
Current plans suggest that CCGs will be responsible for the following:
- Services from the hospitals (planned, routine care, and emergency care)
- Community and primary care services e.g. district nurses, community matrons, health visitors)
- Mental health services
- Prescribing
- Learning disabilities services
- Corporate management - managers to support the GPs
CCGs will not be responsible for :
- Primary medical, dental, optometric, pharmaceutical services
- Health improvement and prevention (although consortia will be expected to work with local authorities to achieve this)
- Adult social care
- Early years i.e. children's social services or respite care
The role of NHS West Sussex in GP commissioning
The role of PCTs, while still undertaking their statutory and legal duties, is to support the development of their local GP consortia to take on the responsibility for commissioning health care services.
From the 1 April 2011, NHS West Sussex has been working as part of NHS Sussex, in partnership with NHS Brighton and Hove, NHS East Sussex Downs and Weald, and NHS Hastings and Rother. Find out more about the role of the cluster.
To this end, NHS Sussex is doing a number of things over the next few months:
- Working with the CCGs to support them to become statutory organisations.
- Put into place transitional arrangement for the functions transferring to the new national NHS Commissioning Board.
- Work with West Sussex County Council to agree how to transfer public health functions to the local authority.
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Further work with West Sussex County Council to maximise opportunities for joint commissioning through the new Joint Commissioning Unit.
