NHS England is delighted to report significant progress in the first post-authorisation review of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which had conditions and directions placed on them.

The hard work of the CCGs working with NHS England has proved so successful that a further 46 CCGs have fully discharged their conditions and directions, meaning they’ve satisfied the all 119 criteria.

Another major breakthrough for the process is that 2 CCGs with legal directions have addressed all their concerns and the legal directions lifted.  With 106 CCGs fully authorised following the March review, a total of 152 (72%) CCGs are free of all conditions placed upon them by NHS England.  The number of CCGs with directions has been reduced from 14 to 8 and two CCGs that had legal directions in place are now recommended for full authorisation.

Last March CCGs became the principal commissioners of healthcare locally, commissioning the majority of services and responsible for £65 billion of the £95 billion NHS commissioning budget. This came after a rigorous assessment with 119 required criteria – the authorisation process.  Authorisation was granted after experts ensured the CCG is safe and effective.

Some CCGs were authorised with conditions or directions, meaning they had some additional work to do before they fully met all the criteria.  NHS England put in place a comprehensive programme of support to help them during the early stage of the new NHS system.

Over the last three months, NHS England has worked with CCGs to address any conditions and directions and today (Thursday 25^th July) we are delighted to announce major progress in achieving this.

Barbara Hakin, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, said:

“This is an outstanding achievement for CCGs at such an early stage after authorisation.

Working together, we have made huge progress to ensure these new organisations bring real benefits to local people.

“We also recognise that this is just the beginning.  Work will continue with CCGs to mitigate all conditions and directions and continually develop to become truly great clinical commissioners which deliver great patient outcomes.

“And, if we keep up this pace, I am confident that by the next review in the autumn, we will be much closer to full authorisation for all CCGs in England.”

In the longer term, for those CCGs who have few or no conditions and directions, a comprehensive ‘assurance’ process will be in place.  This is the way we will assure that CCGs are working to improve services and quality of care for patients, as well as realising their full potential in becoming ‘great’ CCGs and getting the best possible outcomes for their local populations.

Created with direct input from CCGs and other relevant support organisations, the assurance framework maps key levels of achievement for CCGs, through both self-assessment, peer assessment and national indicators as part of an on-going progress.

Conditions reviews will be carried out as part of the quarterly checkpoints within the CCG assurance framework.  By the end of 2013/14, any CCGs with conditions still remaining should be mainstreamed into the on-going assurance process meaning separate conditions reviews will no longer be run.

Download: Clinical Commissioning Group Authorisation: Second conditions review outcomes (this document is no longer available here but can be found on the National Archives website)

Download: The NHS Basildon and Brentwood Clinical Commissioning Group Directions 2013 (No. 2) (this document is no longer available here but can be found on the National Archives website)

Download: The NHS Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group Directions 2013 (No. 2) (this document is no longer available here but can be found on the National Archives website)

Download: The NHS Thurrock Clinical Commissioning Group Directions 2013 (No. 2) (this document is no longer available here but can be found on the National Archives website)