Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will ensure that their review of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group contract with UnitingCare LLP for older people’s and adult community services will deal objectively with the role of the Department of Health and NHS England, in the light of the fact that both organisations undertook Gateway reviews of the contract proposals.
Lord Prior of Brampton
NHS England is responsible for the review of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough clinical commissioning group’s (CCGss) contract with UnitingCare LLP. NHS England advises that it has commissioned an independent review to ensure objectivity. The review is looking at the contract from a commissioning perspective, which means it will cover the role of NHS England, but the role of the Department is not within its scope.
The Department’s role in gateway reviews was to facilitate the review on behalf of the project owner. The procedure was that the Department’s Health Gateway Team, working with the project owner, selected a suitable review team from a pool of accredited, independent reviewers. At the end of the review, the independent review team produced a report which was presented to the project owner and was their property. The Department stopped providing this service in 2015.
NHS England advises that the CCG, as the project owner, used the Department’s Health Gateway Team to facilitate three independent gateway reviews into its procurement for older people’s and adult community services, two in 2013 before the submission of final bids and the third in November 2014. NHS England advises that these gateway reviews were not intended to undertake detailed financial reconciliation.
NHS England advises that it facilitated two gateway reviews in early 2014, before the appointment of the preferred bidder. These focused on reviewing significant service changes from a clinical pathway perspective. They were not intended to cover procurement and technical financial details.
