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Study: CCGs serve ‘too many masters’

Study: CCGs serve ‘too many masters’
13 December 2013



Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are accountable to too many masters with potentially competing agendas, research published in BMJ Open has found.
The authors took a detailed look at the accountability relationships of eight CCGs to get a snapshot of how these were developing. The degree of autonomy that CCGs have will to a large extent depend on these relationships, they say.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are accountable to too many masters with potentially competing agendas, research published in BMJ Open has found.
The authors took a detailed look at the accountability relationships of eight CCGs to get a snapshot of how these were developing. The degree of autonomy that CCGs have will to a large extent depend on these relationships, they say.
Between September 2011 and June 2012, the researchers interviewed 91 people, including family doctors, managers, and governing body members; sat in on many different types of meetings, totalling 439 hours and analysed a wide range of documents.
CCGs are externally accountable to NHS England (the government); Monitor (the regulator), Health and Wellbeing Boards (public health and social care); the local Health Watch (patients); the public; local medical committees (GP bodies); and the local authority Overview and Scrutiny Committee (public health).
They are also internally accountable to the CCG governing body, member practices and locality groups.
Based on the evidence they gathered, the authors conclude that CCGs are indeed more accountable than PCTs. But they “are at the centre of complex web of accountability relationships, both internal and external,” the researchers from the University of Manchester Centre for Primary Care said.
“However, whether this translates into being more responsive, or more easily held to account, remains to be seen,” they cautioned. 
According to the authors, previous research indicates that complex accountability arrangements tend to generate confusion, “and where organisations are accountable to multiple audiences, the interests of these audiences may differ, generating unintended consequences”. 
The accountability relationship with NHS England is the only one that is clearly defined, and where sanctions apply, the authors point out.  “The accountability to other external bodies, such as Health and Wellbeing Boards, is, by contrast, much weaker,” the say.
Accountability to the regulator may be enforced by competition law, but it is unclear how this will work in practice, they suggest, while accountability to the public is political and based on “the relatively weak notion of ‘transparency’ with no associated sanctions,” they point out.
The responses of the interviewees indicate that CCGs may choose to satisfy their public audiences rather than the government and possibly avoid “hard decisions in the face of public opposition,” they say.
Internal accountabilities are equally complex, and it is unclear what sanctions would, or could. be applied to general practices that transgress the rules of the CCG, the authors emphasise.
“This early study raises some important issues and concerns, including the risk that the different bodies to whom CCGs are accountable will have differing (or conflicting) agendas, and the lack of clarity over the operation of sanction regimes,” they conclude.
The full study is available to view on the BMJ Open website

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