Health matters

We are heading in to a period of some pretty frank and tough discussions about NHS finances - locally and nationally. The national head of Health Service Improvement Jim Mackey has flagged this in asking "what is good enough" recently, and locally the chief officer of the Cambridgeshire Clinical Commissioning Group Tracy Dowling has talked about tackling its "underlying recurrent deficit". 

So it is worrying that our CCG is now rated "inadequate" in the areas of leadership and finances.

Our CCG is embattled, and there is a new team trying to steer a better course. 

The CCG matters because it is responsible for planning and commissioning health care services across the county. It is not well funded, and is trying to tackle the boom that is the county's population and its demands, especially an ageing population. But is has also scored some own-goals, not least the collapse of the ultimately flawed £800m UnitingCare contract which has cost the local health economy £8m this year. The National Audit Office (NAO) criticised the CCG for not getting a guarantee from UnitingCare's backers to fund any contractual losses if there were problems.  

The county council health committee, of which I am a member, has the powers under the Local Govt Act 2000 to scrutinize what the CCG is doing. We did this regarding the Uniting Care collapse at the turn of the year. We must continue to discharge that duty to our residents.

So we will need to be continue to be robust, as well as supportive, because the CCG will already be under the cosh from NHS England to produce a performance improvement plan. If our CCG doesnt get better fast, we will all catch more than a cold, especially those parts of the county where people's health is poor.