NPA welcomes commissioning assessments
Plans announced by the Healthcare Commission to assess practice-based commissioning, in terms of outcomes achieved for the resources invested, have been welcomed by the National Pharmacy Association.
The NPA said this week that local commissioners should ensure that all
providers have an equal opportunity to deliver services in order to maximise
the range of providers. It called on commissioners to publish service
specifications, demographic data and information on current provision
and to allow time for new providers to prepare proposals.
“There needs to be a clear entry point … so that new providers
have an opportunity to contest service provision with established providers,” it
said.
Stephen Fishwick, NPA head of NHS service development, added: “Views
from potential providers could be obtained through the local providers
forums, which are to be established under the commissioning framework
for health and well-being. No assumptions should be made about the parameters
of community pharmacy’s role and community pharmacists must be
among those to be considered by commissioners.”
Guidance
published last year (PJ, 2 December 2006, p655) on the practical
implementation of practice-based commissioning to develop enhanced primary
care services says: “Primary care trusts should seek to establish
a range of providers (such as GP limited companies, third sector organisations
that are ‘values-driven’, community pharmacies and private
companies) from which patients can choose, driving up quality through
contestability.”
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