Website set to boost North-west commissioning

Health bodies in the North-west have launched a new website, The North West Commissioning Roadmap, designed to support joint strategic commissioning in the North-west.

The new website has been launched to help commissioners of both health and wellbeing services in the region to share the best in current practice across health and social care.

It was created through a collaboration between the Institute of Public Care, ADASS (Association of Directors of Adult Social Services) North West, NHS North West, CSIP (Care Services Improvement Partnership) North West, and the Regional Director of Public Health.

A spokesperson for the website, said: “We understand how difficult it is for commissioners to find reliable information and support to help them develop their practice. We set out therefore to develop a tool, with distinctive North-west characteristics, to support a process of shared learning in the region.”

The Roadmap website is aimed at commissioners of adult health and wellbeing services in local authorities and PCTs across the North-west region.

As well as offering a place for commissioning discussion, the website is also backed up with an action learning set for commissioners from both health and social care, including the opportunity for participants to obtain a ‘Certificate in Commissioning and Purchasing in Public Care’ from Oxford Brookes University.

Possible future developments under discussion include extending the its capabilities so as to allow North-west commissioners to communicate with each other in ‘real time’ so that solutions can be shared across the region.

David Jones, regional change agent at CSIP North West, said: “We wanted to build a bridge between the body of knowledge around commissioning that is out there already and some sort of local network. The North-west is a reasonably compact geographic area with opportunities for good communications and some common commissioning issues to address.

“We want to help link people up between and across local authorities and the NHS – we need to share local experience so everyone can benefit from it.”

It is hoped that through the website, health and social services in the region will be able to commission as effectively and efficiently as possible, and encourage more consistent commissioning practice across the region.

The website is free for anyone to use and developers it proves as popular as the Commissioning eBook by CSIP and the Institute of Public Care which currently has around 3000 articles downloaded each month.