THE annual bill for spending on health services by family GPs in East Hampshire after the last reorganisation of the NHS by the Coalition Government came to £228.5m.

The NHS South Eastern Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group (SEHCCG) has published details of its activiies for 2014/15, revealing that the £228.5m sum included £128m for acute hospital care, £20m for mental health, £37m for prescribing and £22m for community health.

The cost of running the new clinical commissioning group covering East Hampshire per resident, per year, is well below the national limit at £20.

And referrals to treatment ran at 91 per cent, with patients getting their treatment within 18 weeks of being referred for admission to hospital and 96 per cent for those who do not need hospital stays.

A total of 95 per cent of patients were seen within two weeks following urgent GP referral for suspected cancer while 98 per cent of adult patients with mental health illness was followed up with seven days of discharge from psychiatric care.

The SEHCCG has developed a new five-year strategy plan for health, which will support all future commissioning activity and set priorities for improved, sustainable and effective services.

In addition, a new innovative quality monitoring system, named “Quasar” is purpose-designed to collect feedback, performance information and other data to provide the commissioning group with the evidence needed to keep a close eye on the quality of services and be able to improve things where necessary as well as reduce variation in services.

Members of the NHS South Eastern Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group held their annual review meeting at the Millennium Centre under the chairmanship of Liphook GP Dr Barbara Rushton.

She said: “Over the next year we will take on more responsibility for the commissioning of primary care services, such as those you would find in your GP surgery.

“That process is well under way and will be vital in helping us to explore ways of really ensuring that primary, community and hospital based health services can work much more closely together, in line with our local strategy for local healthcare.

“We also wanted to develop a vision for primary care which addresses issues such as workload and workforce pressures - and gives us more control and flexibility over budgets in future so that we ensure we get the best possible value from every pound we invest.

“We also fully support the exploitation of further integrated models of commissioning and service provision, with our NHS and other partners, particularly through the Better Care programme and the exciting ‘vanguard’ initiative for developing a multi-speciality community provider, a new model of care that will again help us to develop responsive, joined-up, out-of-hospital services.”

The proposed multi-speciality “vanguard” approach focuses on patients which will transform how care is delivered to improve patient’s health, wellbeing and independence.

It aims on developing what is known as a multi-speciality community provider organisation built around GP practices, and bringing in nurses, hospital specialists, therapists and community-based professionals for people to have more convenient access to a wider range of services.

It will ensure out-of-hospital services are better tailored to individual needs, and in a more “joined-up” way - regardless of who provides them - and will link closely to the work on community providers.

The new clinical commissioning group joint initiative helps move clinically-stable patients at Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital to a nursing home more quickly, providing an effective, flexible and responsive approach.

The CCG is taking on increasing responsibility for commissioning primary care GP services in order to plan and deliver services in the community.

Dr Rushton added: “Working with all NHS partners, we are working to reduce pressure on Portsmouth’s main hospital, including improving the flow of patients at the emergency department and throughout the hospital.

“We have moved to tackle problems caused by high numbers of hospital referrals for some specialisms which have seen our referral numbers fall – while those nationally have increased.

“Successes have included the Community Ophthalmology (eye) Service.

“Many people with diabetes are getting better care locally thanks to a ground-breaking partnership approach which has allowed specialist, complex care to be moved nearer their homes – helping patients enjoy better care and be more aware of important considerations like foot heath issues which will contribute, in the long term, to fewer amputations.

“We continue our plans to redevelop the Chase community hospital and attract more new services to the Whitehill-Bordon area.

“A new integrated team of healthcare professionals has been introduced supporting people recovering from illness and injury.”

The clinical commissioning group was established in April 2013, to ensure GPs and other clinicians take charge of decisions on how to shape and spend NHS resources, after listening to and acting on their patient’s views.

The South Eastern Hampshire CCG has 26 GP member practices and a £229m budget for 2014/15 covering services at acute hospitals, community services and prescribing for around 210,000 people across a 150 square mile area, including Whitehill and Bordon, Petersfield, Waterlooville and Havant.

For more details, visit southeasternhamp shireccg.nhs.uk.