Monitor puts spotlight on integrating community and acute services in Devon
Monitor is investigating the commissioning of community services in Devon worth more than £100 million over 3 years.
The health sector regulator stepped in after receiving a complaint from Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust, a provider of acute and community services including district nursing and community matrons.
The complaint is about NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) decision to name the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust as its preferred provider of community services for the eastern part of the CCG’s area.
Monitor will review the decision-making process to ensure it was run in the best interests of patients, in accordance with the rules on procurement, choice and competition.
Catherine Davies, Executive Director of Cooperation and Competition at Monitor, said
We have taken this case on because it may provide valuable lessons for the rest of the NHS as it tries to come up with new models of care to meet the many challenges it faces.
Integration of acute and community services can bring about real improvements for patients. There are a number of ways to achieve better integration of care and we want to make sure that commissioners are going about it properly.
The regulator will publish further information about the nature of the complaint and progress of its investigation in due course.