South Reading Patient Voice

NHS England has announced that the WeBOB Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) will become an Integrated Care System (ICS).

See the BOB STP website for more details.

Two of its constituent areas are already Integrated Care Systems - namely Berkshire West and Buckinghamshire. These will become Integrated Care Partnerships. It is the declared policy of NHS England to push decision-making to the lowest appropriate level - so we hope that much of what has already been achieved in the Berkshire West ICS will be preserved and built upon.

The WeBOB area covering Western Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire is incoherent with respect to transport and natural connection. It will certainly be a great barrier to participation for ordinary members of the public to have to travel across this improbable area.

One can only note a certain rising organisational ferment across the NHS with Primary Care Networks, GP Alliances and CCGs all seeking to determine their places in the future structure.

As far as we know there has been no public consultation at all about this extraordinary move. A question was asked about this at a recent CCG Governing Body and we were told that it was far off or unlikely.

Furthermore, responsibility for workforce matters has been devolved to regions, thus separating it from training under Health Education England, which is a national body.

The WeBOB STP has established several work streams - among them:

• Workforce - joint working on culture, recruitment, staff support, planning, productivity
• Acute Care Collaboration - to be led by Belinda Bolton of Oxford University Hospitals FT - focusing on elective care and support service
• A Commisioning Workstream is being led by Louise Patten, Chief Executive Officer of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire CCGs. This will review the level at which commissioning decisions should take place within the ICS area. The overall programme of work is divided into three topics; CCG commissioning, primary care commissioning and specialised commissioning. CCG commissioning is led by Louise Patten, specialised commissioning is led by Janet Meek (Regional Director of Specialised Commissioning NHS England South) and primary care commissioning is led by Cathy Winfield, Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire West CCG, who will be developing commissioning arrangements and a single strategy for primary care across the ICS area.

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Annoucement of Approval of WeBOB Application for ICS Status (PDF)	192.78 KB