Medical Centre

One of the key aims of establishing clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England’s NHS was to place general practitioners at the heart of NHS commissioning. And yet surveys consistently show that many GPs feel that their view are ignored by their CCGs. For example, an NHS England survey reported that only 44% of GPs said that their CCGs acted on their views. A BMA survey reported that nearly two-thirds of GPs feel they either had limited influence on their CCGs or that they were dictated to by their CCGs rather than being asked to contribute to CCG decision making. Another key aim of creating CCGs was to make use of GPs’ clinical expertise in commissioning health services to improve health outcomes and patients’ experience of the NHS. However, a Pulse survey found that more than twice as many GPs think that the introduction of CCGs has been detrimental to patient care than think have improved it. In many ways, the fate of CCGs is linked with inextricably the consequence...

A recent article from my research group examined coverage of the NHS Health Check programme in England. The article was published in the journal Preventive Medicine . We found that coverage of the programme was low in the first four years and there was a wide variation in coverage between general practice. There was an increase in statin prescribing but only about one in three people who attended for a Health Check and who were found to have a cardiovascular risk score (20% or more 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease) were prescribed a statin. We concluded that unless coverage of the NHS Health Check programme improved and uptake of statins in high-risk groups increased, the programme would not deliver its predicted benefits in reducing morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease. The article was covered by a number of media outlets including the Daily Mail and Pulse .