My Road To Healthcare Commissioning

A Personal Reflection

Headline from the Independent Newspaper. This picture was taken down quite quickly !

My introduction to the ‘medical civil service’ came shortly after I completed my section 12 approval training. I was beavering away through my patient list when I was asked by Thanet’s CCG chief operating officer if I would like to do some “mental health work”.

I had no idea what this meant or what I was in for or where my life was going to go,  but I thought it would be rude to say no!

You may never have thought about what happens to your prescription in the ether when you decide to prescribe. Very slowly, I started to understand that there were myriad torturous and complex processes sitting behind every clinical decision. Things don’t just miraculously ‘travel’ from A to B. In retrospect this extreme naivety was a gift because I asked countless questions and developed to curiosity to understand how and why things work but more importantly why they don’t.

I began to understand that there was ‘something’ called a commissioning cycle. Services were envisioned, a business case written up, money found and hey presto, a service was born! Clearly, it is nothing like I’ve just described, and the ‘cycle’ has a number of clear phases with umpteen sub-phases in each of those parts involving highly skilled people in contracting, finance, management, combined with clinical input. In essence, it is the process of planning, purchasing, and reviewing services to meet population needs.

Last year, through a LinkedIn DM,  an experienced GP colleague with limited commissioning experience called me because they had seen my profile and thought being an ICS clinical lead would be a fascinating career move, and would build on her national charity work. Who was I to disagree!

I explained in some detail what the commissioning cycle involved, the types of questions that might get asked and how to respond. I took time to explain elements of the cycle who was responsible for them how they would be delivered, and once delivered, how the contract would be managed, assured and brought into business as usual.

I gave advice on risk registers, invitation to tender (ITT), business cases commissioning support and things to look out for.

I’m genuinely delighted to say that my colleague was successful at interview and is now supporting other others with national work.

Through the mentorship experience, I learned many valuable lessons and insights. The technical knowledge is really something that can be learned although where you find that information, package it and deliver it in a concise manner that’s appropriate and readily available to a job applicant is I think, different. My other key reflection is that the knowledge serves to bolster confidence. I’m pretty sure they would’ve got the job anyway because they’re brilliant!