John Baron – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Baron on 2015-11-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, in what way his Department will hold clinical commissioning groups responsible for making improvements along the cancer pathway including (a) early diagnosis and (b) supporting people beyond treatment.
Jane Ellison
NHS England is committed to reworking the clinical commission group (CCG) assurance framework for 2016-17 to reflect the triple aim of closing the gap on health inequalities, improving the quality of care and achieving financial sustainability, in addition to the themes of the Five Year Forward View: prevention; patient and community engagement; clinical priorities; and development of new care models.
Cancer has been identified as one of these clinical priorities, and metrics will be selected which reflect the strategic priorities laid out by the independent Cancer Taskforce, including early diagnosis and supporting people to live well, with, and, beyond cancer.
The assessment framework brings together the assurance framework and key metrics, and will incorporate future transformation as well as current performance. It will drive improvement rather than just assure and assess.
CCGs will receive an overall annual rating and, within the framework, will be rated for six clinical priorities of: cancer, dementia, diabetes, mental health, maternity, and learning difficulties.
CCGs will be rated on the same four point scale used by the Care Quality Commission: outstanding, good, requires improvement, or inadequate. The ratings for the clinical priority areas will be made by independent expert committees.
The metrics are currently in development and NHS England expects to publish a set for consultation in December 2015, at around the same time as the planning guidance, with a final version in March 2016. The assessment framework will come in to operational effect from 1 April 2016 and initial ratings in the six clinical priority areas will be published in June 2016.
