A Policy Briefing aimed at healthcare professionals is available for LKS staff to share in their own organisations. This has been produced and shared by the JET Library, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Please feel free to reproduce it (with acknowledgement to JET Library) for your own purposes.

Impact on library policy/practice: 

A large proportion (39%) of the contracts for community provision are held by private providers, with a further proportion held by charities. Library provision to these groups is likely to be difficult to arrange due to the effort required to prepare SLAs with each provider, with many of these providers holding just one contract.

Source: The Health Foundation

Link to main document

Publication format: PDF

Date of publication: May 2017

Summary of driver:

This paper analyses the community care contracts held by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England. NHS providers held more than half of the total annual value of contracts in the sample, while private providers held 5% of the total annual value, but 39% of the total number of contracts issued. Private providers tended to hold much smaller contracts, with 6 in 10 holding contracts with a combined value of less than £100,000. Additionally, most held just one contract.

Key features of driver:

• Successive governments have wanted to increase the use of community care relative to acute care
• BUT community care still only accounts for one in every 10 pounds spent by commissioners
• Recently spending on community care delivered by non-NHS providers has increased substantially
• BUT not many people know who are providing these contracts or what size they are
• Investment in community provision is central to the Five year forward view, leading to 14 multispecialty community provider (MCP) vanguards testing new ways of delivering community care.
• NHS providers hold over half (53%) of the total annual value of contracts awarded for community services
• Other contracts are provided by:
  • GPs
  • Local Authorities
  • Charities
  • Private Companies
• Of the contracts studied by the Health Foundation private providers held 39% by number but only 5% by value
• Private providers tend to hold much smaller contracts – most held just one
• The majority of very large contracts were held by the NHS

Primary audience: Commissioners, community healthcare providers

Date last updated: August 2017

Due for review: August 2018

Group member responsible: JC

Tagged: Commissioning, Primary care