Integrated Care Provider - Single contract for community services - Public engagement

Get involved to help us make a decision about moving to adopt a lead provider contract model for All together Better in Sunderland

Background

Since 2013 NHS Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group has been working closely with health and care organisations through the All Together Better (ATB) alliance to help join up community health and care.

All Together Better is an alliance of health and care providers and commissioning organisations in Sunderland who are working together in a collaborative way to design and deliver the most personalised, pro-active and joined-up care possible for people in the City.

This has been done through greater collaboration to help integrate out of hospital services with a shared purpose and agreed ways of working to improve the care we provide to our patients.

Throughout the development of All Together Better we have involved stakeholders, patients and the public in giving their views to help us develop the alliance and improve services and the care we provide. You can read more about this here.  

Moving to a new type of contract arrangement

Despite the longstanding aim of the NHS to improve integration of services, previously there has not been a commissioning contract designed specifically to promote an integrated service model.

Recognising this, and the need for a better funding mechanism to allow improved integration of services, NHS England undertook a national consultation in 2018 on contracting arrangements for ‘Integrated Care Providers’. This means that local systems can now consider new ways of contracting services in order to drive improvements in patient care.

In line with the NHS Long Term Plan and our ambition to integrate services, the CCG feels that the time is right to consider if a move to an Integrated Care Provider    arrangement would enable even better joined up decision making and integration of services across Sunderland.

This would mean potentially awarding a single contract to a lead provider on behalf of ATB. That provider would become responsible for the integrated provision of ‘out of hospital’ care across the city.

This is known as a lead provider model.

This takes into account the feedback from the national consultation run by NHS England in 2018 on contracting arrangements for Integrated Care Providers.

It would allow funding to flow directly to the All Together Better alliance via a lead provider contract, giving ATB greater ability to manage and coordinate out of hospital care working collectively with all service providers in the City.

It’s important to note that we are not changing the way services are provided to patients – this is about how contracts are arranged. The aim is to enable even better joined up decision making and integration of services through a new contracting arrangement. Should services need to change in the future, they would be subject to appropriate engagement, and where necessary, consultation processes.

The two different scenarios that the CCG is considering are:

Scenario one - Move to a procurement process to appoint a single contract to a lead provider on behalf of ATB – the Lead Provider Model.

OR

Scenario two - Keep the current arrangements of an alliance with no lead provider arrangement.