The eight clinical commissioning groups in Kent and Medway will merge to form a single clinical commissioning group from 1 April 2020 after NHS England and NHS Improvement gave formal approval.

Dr Navin Kumta, who has been appointed clinical chair of the new NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “The eight CCGs have been working together more and more over many years and by doing so we have improved the quality of health services across Kent and Medway. But we’ve recognised there are challenges which could not be overcome by the eight CCGs as individual organisations. Joining forces as a single CCG is the natural next step.”

Wilf Williams, Accountable Officer for the new NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “It took an enormous amount of effort from many people across the CCGs and the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) to pull the merger proposal together. On behalf of all the CCG governing bodies and the STP senior team we would like to thank everyone involved.

“There is still much to be done to shape the new organisation and develop the Kent and Medway integrated care system. We are obviously all intensely focused on supporting the response to Covid-19 and that will continue to be our priority for the foreseeable future, which means some of this work needs to be deferred until after the immediate pressure of the pandemic passes.

“But, looking ahead, the merger will offer a significant opportunity to drive forward improvements to how health and care services support the people of Kent and Medway.”

For the first time in more than five years, cancer services in Kent and Medway have hit the national target for the 62-day performance standard.

Cancer teams from the four hospital trusts in Kent and Medway made sure 85.6 per cent of their patients seen in December did not wait more than two months for cancer treatment, following an urgent referral from their GP.

This means the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance is the second highest performing alliance in the country. This improvement comes just 18 months after cancer services in the county were consistently performing bottom in the country.

Ian Vousden, Programme Director for the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance, said: “We are absolutely delighted at the news, because it means more people are receiving the essential care they need as quickly as possible.

“This result is due to the continual hard work and collaboration between all of our cancer services and comes hot on the heels of our October performance where Kent and Medway performed top in the country, seeing 84.8 per cent of patients. To now exceed that and meet the national standard is a testament to how we are working hard to improve cancer care.”

The improvements have been a result of several changes, particularly in how men with prostate cancer are being treated. Waiting times have been cut for prostate cancer patients by up to six weeks by introducing MRI scans before a biopsy so clinicians can specifically target the area that needs to be tested. This streamlined process is far more effective for both patients needing treatment and clinicians delivering care.

Dr Henry Taylor, Clinical Lead for the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance, said:  “Nationally, there has been a significant increase in referral numbers over the past 18 months and we were committed to meeting that challenge. More than 89 per cent of prostate patients are now treated within the 62 day target.

“Our next challenge is making sure we can sustain this performance every month. To do this we are now rolling out similar improvements that have elevated prostate care across other cancer pathways so all patients receive timely and appropriate care.”

Professor Sanjeev Madaan (pictured right), Consultant Urological Surgeon and Lead Cancer Clinician at Darent Valley Hospital said: “It has been a real partnership effort. Working closely with hospital colleagues, GPs, cancer clinicians and our commissioners, we were able to buy new equipment and introduce new roles to help patients move smoothly through the stages of identifying, diagnosing and treating cancer.” 

The 62-day national standard is set to make sure at least 85 per cent of patients do not wait more than two months for cancer treatment, following an urgent referral from their GP.

Data on the 62-day cancer standard is reported monthly. The information is published two months after the reporting period so it can be nationally validated. The national standard for 62-day performance is 85% of patients to be seen within 62 days of urgent referral from GP.

The Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance brings together clinicians and managers from health, social care and other services to transform the diagnosis, treatment and care for cancer patients. These partnerships enable care to be more effectively planned across local cancer pathways. The alliance is funded by NHS England and aligned to the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.

There are 19 cancer alliances across England. You can find out more about the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance here: www.kentandmedway.nhs.uk/workstreams/cancer/

Wilf Williams returns to Kent to head up the newly-formed Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

Ashford CCG Clinical Chair Dr Navin Kumta to take on the role of Clinical Chair for the new CCG

After a rigorous selection process, the eight CCGs in Kent and Medway have confirmed that the Accountable Officer for the newly formed Kent and Medway CCG will be Wilf Williams.

Wilf has extensive experience of leading health organisations in Kent and developing services across the region, and has spent most of his career in the NHS. From 2002 to 2006, he was the Chief Executive of the Canterbury and Coastal Primary Care Trust (PCT), which both planned and delivered health and care services to more than 600,000 people in the Canterbury area. He took on the role having previously been Chief Executive of the Canterbury and Coastal Primary Care Group, which became a PCT in 2002.

Prior to this, Wilf had been the Health Commissioner for the Canterbury and Coastal area of the East Kent Health Authority, and had held number of other senior health roles in the UK and Australia. He brings experience in both commissioning and provider roles and has worked across primary, community, acute and mental health sectors.

Since 2006, Wilf has been working as a Director in the National Health & Human Services practice in Australia for the prestigious consultancy firm KPMG. In the role he oversaw a number of projects for the Australian health system, including major service redesigns and the improvement of health services for servicemen in the Australian armed forces.

As Accountable Officer and system leader Wilf will lead the transformation of Kent and Medway, and deliver our ambition to integrate health and care services to improve the health and care of our population of 1.8 million people.

Wilf will take forward the bringing together of the eight CCGs into a single organisation, taking forward the good work that is already underway to merge organisations from April 2020. He will take on the role formally from the beginning of April 2020, following a handover period with outgoing Accountable Officer Glenn Douglas, and will also lead the STP as it evolves into an Integrated Care System, supporting ever-closer working between the health and care organisations in the region.

Commenting on his appointment, Wilf said:

“I’m looking forward enormously to working with partners across the NHS and beyond as well as engaging with patients and communities to drive the development of a truly integrated care system. Returning to the NHS in Kent & Medway, where I enjoyed many rewarding years earlier in my career, is both a thrill and a privilege. I am joining at a time of great opportunity with the merger of the CCGs as the NHS moves into a new era of collaboration as we focus together on helping local people live their best life.”

Wilf will be joined on the CCG’s board by the newly appointment Clinical Chair, Dr Navin Kumta. Navin is currently the Clinical Chair of Ashford CCG, and has been involved in a number of health care bodies in Kent, including the NHS East Kent Federation and the Ashford Health and Wellbeing Board.

A practicing GP with clinical interests in primary care and respiratory care, Navin moved to Kent in 2001. He has been caring for patients at the Willesborough Health Centre in Ashford since 2005.

Navin said: “This is a really exciting time for clinically-led commissioning. The new Kent and Medway wide CCG will be looking to take a more strategic approach to improving healthcare for our whole population of around 1.8million people. We’ll be focusing much more on setting the outcomes of better health that we want to see. We’ll then work with the four integrated care partnerships as they design and deliver the most effective care tailored to the needs in their areas.”

NHS leaders in east Kent have confirmed that two options for improving hospital services in east Kent have been shortlisted and are now included in a pre-consultation business case to be reviewed by NHS England and NHS Improvement, and the South East Clinical Senate.

Caroline Selkirk, Managing Director of the four east Kent clinical commissioning groups, said: “We want the NHS to provide excellent healthcare for everyone in east Kent. To achieve that, it has to change. Our proposals include major improvements to hospital care and local care in east Kent, with significant new investment to deliver high quality hospital services including emergency services, bringing together specialist inpatient services into one hospital, and separating planned and emergency orthopaedic surgery.

“To be included on the shortlist, both options were assessed against five detailed criteria, developed with clinicians and tested with the public. The criteria have been designed to ensure the options being proposed can deliver improvements in patient care, are accessible for patients, are deliverable within the timeframe needed, sustainable for the future, and affordable within the money available.”

Next steps towards consultation

A draft pre-consultation business case is now being assessed by NHS England and NHS Improvement’s South East team and the South East Clinical Senate (an independent group of clinicians). Their feedback will be incorporated into a final version. Because both options require significant capital funding from central NHS budgets, the final pre-consultation business case must be approved by NHS England and NHS Improvement’s national team before consultation can begin.

The timing of a public consultation depends on the business case review and approval process and will be published as soon as dates are confirmed.

No final decision will be taken until after commissioners have run and considered feedback from a formal public consultation, alongside all other evidence.

Find out more

Papers for the next meeting in public of the Sustainable Health Care in East Kent Joint Committee are now available online here. The meeting takes place on Thursday 23 January from 11am at The Ark in Dover. If you would like to attend to observe the meeting you can book here.

The agenda for the meeting includes:

• Ratification of previous decisions 
• Minutes of previous meeting
• Programme update (includes shortlist confirmation)

You can also dial in to listen to the meeting over the phone. The call details are 03309 981 261 and access pin 726861# (an audio recording of the event will be available after the meeting).

Questions about the topics being discussed can be submitted to the email above and we will endeavour to cover these as part of the committee’s discussions. Find out more about ‘meetings in public’ and how they differ from ‘public meetings’ here.

NHS cancer teams across the county are celebrating the news they have topped the national table for their 62-day cancer performance.

The national standard is set to make sure patients do not wait more than two months for cancer treatment, following an urgent referral from their GP.

Cancer teams from the four hospital trusts in Kent and Medway made sure 84.8 per cent of their patients were seen within the 62-day standard in October 2019.

This incredible improvement comes just one year after Kent and Medway were consistently performing bottom in the country.

Ian Vousden, Programme Director for the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance, said: “We are absolutely delighted at the news, because it means more people are receiving the essential care they need as quickly as possible. This result is due to the continual hard work and collaboration between all of our cancer services – it has been a real partnership effort to improve care for people across the county.

“Nationally, there has been a significant increase in referral numbers over the past 18 months and we were committed to meeting that challenge. Working closely with the hospital trusts, GPs, cancer clinicians and our commissioners, we were able to identify specific improvements, such as buying new equipment and introducing new roles to help patients move smoothly through the stages of identifying, diagnosing and treating cancer.

“In particular we have cut waiting times for prostate cancer patients by up to six weeks by introducing MRI scans before a biopsy so clinicians can specifically target the area that needs to be tested. This streamlined process is far more effective for both patients needing treatment and clinicians delivering care. More than 89 per cent of prostate patients are now seen within the 62 day target.

“While we are incredibly proud of this news, we know there is still a challenge ahead in making sure this performance can be improved so we are regularly meeting the national standard. To do this we are now rolling out similar improvements that have elevated prostate care across other cancer pathways so all patients receive timely and appropriate care.”

Data on the 62-day cancer standard is reported monthly. The information is published two months after the reporting period so it can be nationally validated. The national standard for 62-day performance is 85% of patients to be seen within 62 days of urgent referral from GP.

The Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance brings together clinicians and managers from health, social care and other services to transform the diagnosis, treatment and care for cancer patients. These partnerships enable care to be more effectively planned across local cancer pathways. The alliance is funded by NHS England and aligned to the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.

There are 19 cancer alliances across England. You can find out more about the Kent and Medway Cancer Alliance here: https://kentandmedway.nhs.uk/workstreams/cancer/

The four hospital trusts in Kent and Medway are: Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and Medway Foundation Trust.

The eight clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Kent and Medway have been given conditional approval to merge and form a single CCG.

The decision by NHS England and NHS Improvement means that from 1 April 2020, subject to conditions being met, there will be one clinical commissioning group for Kent and Medway. This is part of plans to change the way some aspects of health and care services are organised so they can do more to:

• prevent ill-health
• provide better, more joined-up care for patients
• make best use of staff and funds to meet rising demand.

The single CCG will save time, money and effort, freeing up GP time to see patients, and staff and GP time to develop new integrated care partnerships and primary care networks, which are a vital part of improving care for local people. These changes are in line with the NHS Long Term Plan which was published earlier this year.

GP Dr Bob Bowes, who chairs the Kent and Medway system transformation steering group, said: “We strongly believe having a single CCG will improve the quality of life and quality of care for our patients, and will help people to live their best life.

“It is an important step towards Kent and Medway becoming an integrated care system, with health and care organisations working together much more closely than in the past.

“We would like to thank everyone who took part in the surveys, shared their thoughts at meetings or otherwise contributed their views. Their feedback has helped us ensure the new CCG can deliver everything expected of it.”

The approval to create the single CCG has some conditions attached to it which the CCGs are confident will be met. These are:

• approval by NHS England and NHS Improvement of the new CCG’s Constitution
• appointment to all statutory Governing Body roles (which include five independent members)
• delivery of the financial recovery plan this year, and clear plans for how the financial position of Kent and Medway will continue to improve
• review in December to determine whether legal financial directions can be lifted from the four east Kent CCGs
• NHS England and NHS Improvement to be part of the recruitment panel for key positions including the new Accountable Officer.

Benefits of a single CCG

GPs in each of the existing eight CCGs across Kent and Medway voted to move to having a single CCG as part of an integrated care system because it will:

• help the NHS to improve patients’ health, wellbeing and experience across the whole of Kent and Medway by focusing on prevention of illness and on the difference services make to lives across Kent and Medway, not just what was done. This will put the focus where it should be, on people’s lives
• use detailed data and insight to better target support to specific groups or communities, such as frail people, or people with severe and enduring mental illness, reducing unfairness in access to health services and unacceptable differences in health and life expectancy
• overcome fragmentation and duplication, allowing faster decision making and channelling savings from doing things once into frontline care
• support the development of the new integrated care partnerships and primary care networks which will design and deliver the majority of care for local people and do this in ways tailored to their populations
• increase the ability of Kent and Medway to submit strong bids for national funding
• improve staff recruitment and retention through a joined-up approach to workforce issues and opportunities
• use its substantial buying power to increase value for money for the taxpayer
• continue to involve local people in shaping health and care services
• accelerate clinically-led innovation.

Before making the request to merge, the eight CCGs gathered views from their GPs, patients, the public, councils, staff, other NHS organisations, the Local Medical Committee, and other parties. The proposal was amended as a result of people’s comments and concerns.

For example, one of the strong themes that emerged was the need to make sure that local people and GPs still have a voice in the single Kent and Medway CCG and to recognise that different communities and areas have different needs.

As a result, the CCGs made a commitment that:

• the Governing Body will always be led by a GP majority, with one GP from each of the existing CCG areas for at least the first two years. After 2022, the Governing Body will review how GPs are elected to it, linked to geographic communities of GPs, to ensure fair representation of the GP membership from across our diverse area
• there will be strong and effective clinical leadership and input throughout the whole organisation
• there will be strong local patient and public representation from the CCG governing body through to individual primary care networks.

In addition, the Patient and Public Advisory Group, which includes representatives from across Kent and Medway, continues to be heavily involved in designing patient and public involvement for the new CCG.

Read the You said we did report which gives details of what people said about the proposal and what the NHS did as a result. For more background to the changes go to www.kentandmedway.nhs.uk/ics

Following news reports about government funding for hospitals across the country and, more recently, for the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Caroline Selkirk, Managing Director of the four clinical commissioning groups in east Kent said:

“We welcome the recognition that investment is needed in health and care services for patients in East Kent.

“There is a strong clinical case for change and clinicians and the public have been working closely to develop proposals that will be subject to full public consultation.

“This includes two potential options that propose using our hospitals in different ways in future to improve standards, with a single centre for specialist services and separating planned and emergency care, to benefit both sets of patients.

“Both options are being tested by local health commissioners prior to public consultation, after which a decision will be made.”

You can read more about the east Kent transformation programme here

The eight clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Kent and Medway have all agreed they want to merge to form a single CCG.

This is a first step towards Kent and Medway becoming an integrated care system, with health and care organisations working together much more closely than in the past.

We strongly believe this will improve the quality of life and quality of care for our patients, and will help people to live their best life.

The decision was taken by the GP members of each CCG, and supported by the governing bodies.

The application will be submitted to NHS England and NHS Improvement on Monday 30 September. Their decision is expected in November. We hope to get the go-ahead to form a single CCG from April 2020. It will incorporate much of the system wide work currently undertaken by the sustainability and transformation partnership.

Thank you to everyone who provided comments either at meetings or through surveys. The proposal was significantly improved as the result of discussions with patients and members of the public, GPs, the Local Medical Committee, staff, and other parties.

For instance, it includes commitments about how input from local people and doctors will support the work of the single CCG.

For more information please visit www.kentandmedway.nhs.uk/ics