‘Public should define good commissioning’

Rebelling against the new National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) CCG Outcomes Indicator Set, healthcare leaders have said that local populations should define what good commissioning is.

NHS Alliance and NHS Clinical Commissioners chair Dr Michael Dixon said there needs to be local input.

Speaking at the Westminster Health Forum in London, he said: “It seems to me that it should not just be a national set of indicators, because local areas have individual, local priorities. 

“As important as having indicators is, having a local population who are involved in defining what good care is in the first place.”

The CCG Outcomes Indicator set (formerly known as the Commissioning Outcomes Framework, or COF), is a set of priorities for commissioning groups.

With statements based around commissioning for cancer or dementia, CCG OIS should enable CCGs to improve the quality of care.

The CCG OIS is used to hold commissioners to account for the quality of services they commission.

However, Dr Dixon added: “Having the public score them afterwards is almost post-hoc. It’s the initial involvement in how the services are planned and what they look like that really does need to involve patients.”

Dr Taj Hassan, vice president of the College of Emergency Medicine agreed that the work by NICE is important.

Dr Hassan said: “One of the issues for us in emergency care when looking at the indicator sets is the problem of quantifying what quality care is.

“If we’re really going to get the NHS to improve we need to ensure that the indicators actually link into dashboards.”

NICE is currently consulting on additions to CCG OIS for the 2014/15 indicator set.