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World Class Commissioning

"PCTs are responsible for spending over £70billion per year on health care. By becoming world class commissioners, PCTs will be the investors of health striving to improve health outcomes for their local population. This is a massive task and one that will have a profound impact on society. We need talented people to work in this vital area and I would encourage you to consider PCTs as an exciting and rewarding career opportunity."

Gary Belfield, Director of Commissioning

PCTs have a new and challenging role focused on the identification and procurement of services for people in their local area - ensuring that the right services are delivered to the right people in the most cost efficient way. There are five key commissioning roles identified by the Department of Health:

  1. Assessing needs, reviewing provision and deciding priorities – includes gaining an excellent understanding of our population, its expectations and wishes, and mapping these against an evaluation of current service provision.
  2. Designing services - in partnership with practice-based commissioners, specifying the range, nature and quality of services to be provided along different patient pathways.
  3. Shaping the structure of supply - to promote patient choice and competition between providers and ensure services are joined-up for patients along pathways, through providers working in partnership.
  4. Managing demand for services and living within its cash-limited allocation of resources - through a comprehensive system of practice-based commissioners
  5. Performance-managing providers through contracts and wider relationships - to ensure contract requirements are met; e.g. on national targets, quality and equity of access, and taking systematic account of patient and practice feedback.

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement suggests that commissioners need these qualities:

  • Drive for improvement
  • Holding to account
  • Collaborative working
  • Effective and strategic influencing
  • Political astuteness
  • Broad scanning

To find out more visit:

Department of Health – Worldclass Commissioning website : http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/.

Download the Competencies Guidebook – get it from this site: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics.