The future of ambulance commissioning

GP consortia are to have a lead role in commissioning ambulance services under the NHS reforms published in the Department of Health's (DH) recent Health and Social Care Bill (Nutfield Trust, 2011). The abolishment of the primary care trusts means that moneys for commissioning the service will fall directly into the hands of GPs, with the NHS commissioning board merely having a supervisory role.

At the same time, ambulance trusts are required to become foundation trusts by the time the changes set out in the bill are implemented. However, nothing fixed has yet been established over how consortia will liaise with ambulance trusts over the commissioning process, although the Department of Health has confirmed that it is likely to be through a lead commissioning arrangement, with one consortia taking the lead in ambulance commissioning on behalf of a group of consortia.

The idea underpinning these commissioning proposals is that services should be locally-led. Under these reforms, local authorities will also be involved in the commissioning process whereby they will have a responsibility for public health and will need to map out the demographics of the population, passing this information on to GPs to aid them in the commissioning decision-making process.