The Operating Framework for 2012/13 shows CCGs will now receive just £25 per head running cost allowance. It said this is before ‘any entitlement to a quality premium’.
The government said previously in its 2012/3 Operating Framework that CCGs would receive between £25 and £35 per head of population. Experts have previously warned that this would not be enough to operate successfully.
The Operating Framework also said PCT clusters must undertake a ‘full review’ of practice registered patient lists, with the view of ensuring all ‘patient anomalies are identified and corrected’ by March 2013.
It added that CCGs should continue to work with PCTs clusters to ensure that no PCT ends 2012/13 in a deficit position.
Any PCT surpluses will be handed over to the NHS Commissioning Board in 2013/14 and made available to ‘the relevant local health systems in the future’, it said.
Meanwhile, the Operating Framework said CCGs should ‘spread the benefits’ of telehealth and telecare as part of their ongoing transformation of NHS services.
‘They should also take full consideration of the use of telehealth and telecare as part of any local reconfiguration plans,’ it said.
It also outlined plans for a number of changes to the tariff, including expanding the best practice tariff to incentivise more procedures being performed in a ‘less acute setting’.
In an attempt to prevent providers ‘cherry picking’ patients, commissioners will now be required to adjust the tariff if ‘the type of patients that a provider treats results in it incurring lower costs than the average of the tariff category’.
In the foreword, NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson said 2012/3 would be a ‘critical year’ in moving to a reformed NHS.
He wrote: ‘That means developing CCGs with a clear focus on improving long-term conditions care, building on the role of GPs as navigators of the wider system. It means developing clinical networks and clinical senates which can support service redesign across wider areas where this is needed.
'And it means developing an NHS Commissioning Board with a relentless focus on improving outcomes and delivering value for money.’
