In this report, we focus on what needs to be done to strengthen commissioning in the NHS, through an analysis of the problems with current commissioning arrangements. We begin by examining what is meant by ‘commissioning’ in the English NHS.
General practitioners make over 9 million referrals each year, triggering many billions of pounds of expenditure. There is also significant variation in the quality and rate of referral between GPs and GP practices. As the NHS faces a prospective funding gap of £14-£20 billion and GPs take the lead for ...
This paper was commissioned by The King’s Fund to inform the Inquiry panel. The views expressed are those of the authors and not of the panel. and Better management of people with long-term conditions has been a key priority of the NHS since the early 1990s. At that time it was recognised that if people with long-term conditions were managed effectively in the community, they should remain relatively stable and enjoy a quality of life free from ...