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Among delegates at the NAPC Conference this year there was an air of excitement and enthusiasm mixed with an understandable fear of the unknown. Sir David Nicholson, NHS Chief Executive, gave a positive speech about the White Paper reforms stating that they could be hugely beneficial to patients and that there is plenty of time for the reforms to take shape. He said: ‘We have two and a half years to make it a reality. …I think it’s very scary, but we should have the confidence we can make it happen. The potential is absolutely fantastic.’

On the second day, Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, spoke with conviction about the need for the reforms set out in the White Paper. He used his keynote speech to announce the pathfinder programme, under which GP consortia that have already been formed would be fast tracked through the process thereby enabling, ‘…GPs to test different design concepts of GP consortia and identify any issues and areas of learning early on so that these can be shared across the GP community.’

So what information is available to help with the development and management of GP consortia? A national guideline on setting up commissioning consortia has not been produced as redesigning and running patient services should be based on local rather than national need, and those involved will require the freedom and flexibility to do this; however there is a wealth of information already available in the form of support packs, guides, toolkits, and support groups; a selection of these are listed in Box 1, below.

Julia Morris, Editor
julia.morris@mgp.ltd.ukG

Box 1: Resources for GPs and GP consortia

DH Strategic Commissioning Development Unit commissioning packs: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/ Browsable/DH_117500 NAPC/United Health UK—The essential guide to GP commissioning: www.napc.co.uk/index.php/napc-and-united-health-uk-launch-first-how-to-guide-for-gp-consortia NAPC/KPMG commissioning academy: www.napc.co.uk/index.php/napckpmg NICE ‘referral advice’ recommendations database: www.nice.org.uk/usingguidance/referraladvice/index.jsp RCGP Centre for Commissioning: www.rcgp.org.uk/news/news_2010/rcgp_centre_for_commissioning.aspx RCGP Primary Care Federations Toolkit: www.rcgp.org.uk/federations_toolkit.aspx NAPC=National Association of Primary Care; RCGP=Royal College of General Practitioners