New NHS board should leave job of commissioning to clinical groups

The role of England’s new NHS Commissioning Board should be strictly defined so that it will have only certain agreed tasks, such as setting new terms and conditions or bringing in new primary care providers into local areas if current provision or choice is insufficient, a Department of Health official has admitted.

Ben Dyson, director of policy, commissioning, and primary care at the department, told NHS managers at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference this week that there was “tension” in the fact that the NHS Commissioning Board would have responsibility for commissioning when the “real job of commissioning” needed …