Thomas, R. HSJ. Published online 3rd March
Clinical commissioning groups lack confidence in their local health and wellbeing boards’ ability to deliver change and the likelihood of the NHS making £22bn in efficiency savings.
A survey of NHS Clinical Commissioners members, shared exclusively with HSJ, found that 46 per cent of respondents did not associate their HWBs with delivering real change.
Nearly 80 per cent were not confident the NHS will achieve the £22bn in efficiency savings by 2020 seen as crucial to the success of the Five Year Forward View.
Of 350 members who responded to the survey, 103 of were chairs or chief officers, 92 were on governing bodies and the rest were managerial, administrative staff and lay members. A third of respondents said HWBs were a place for discussion and not for action, while 49 per cent of chairs and chief officers agreed this was the case “to a great extent”.
However, the survey reflected positively on CCGs’ relationships with their HWBs. Three-quarters said they associate them with partnership working , 64 per cent agreed they were a place of open discussion and 57 per cent said they were an “an equal partnership between health and social care”.
On the health service’s ability to deliver £22bn in efficiency savings by 2020, just 2 per cent of respondents said they were confident, while 79 per cent were “not very confident” or “not at all confident”.
