Steve McGuire, Director of Capital, Estates, Facilities and IT for the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
said “I am delighted to announce the transfer of the Support Services Partnership south west London provider services (IFPS)to Guy’s and St Thomas’. I and my team are looking forward to getting to know the IFPS team and working with them to provide first class services across South London”.
The separation of SSP services - Our provider services (IFPS) are now hosted by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Our commissioning function (SAM) will continue to be hosted by NHS Wandsworth.
In January 2009, the Department of Health published Transforming Community Services: enabling new patterns of provision, which requires PCT provider services to:
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Move their relationship with their commissioners to a purely contractual one
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Consider what types of organisations will best meet the future needs of patients and local communities
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Understand how change can be managed to support the transformation of services, to meet the needs of patients and local communities
The SSP as a provider of non clinical support services to PCTs within south west London is therefore also required to implement this policy.
In order to meet the requirements of the
Transforming Community Services (TCS) programme a decision was made in October 2009 by SSP Board to separate the provider focused functions from the commissioning functions of the SSP.
As of 1 October 2010 there will be a separation of the two functions, with a continuation of SSP commissioning services, Strategic Asset Management (SAM) under NHS Wandsworth, and SSP provider functions services (IFPS) to be newly hosted by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT).
Background behind the Changes to SSP
The High Quality Care for All: Next Stage review (released by the Department of Health June 2008) sets out the vision for making ‘quality’ the organising principle in the provision of care to NHS patients. This was followed by ‘Our Vision for primary and community care’ (Department of Health September 2008), a public commitment to ‘creating modern, responsive community services of a consistently high standard’ for the delivery of high quality care. The Operating Framework 2008/9 and 2009/10, clearly expects all PCTs to effect an internal separation of their operational services and use commercially binding contracts to commission services in the future.
The delivery of these policies is the primary objectives of the Transforming Community Services (TCS) programme (Department of Health 2009). The programme consists of 10 projects, two of which are World Class Commissioning of Community Services (WCC) and New Patterns of Provision. WCC will enable commissioners to develop a patient led NHS that is more efficient in its use of resources. New Patterns of Provision will enable providers to decide on the best organisational model to deliver care and manage the transformation of service provision.
Specific to the SSP, as a provider of non clinical services, WCC and New Patterns of Provision will support us in choosing an organisational form that will enable us to continue to respond to the needs of providers and commissioners. Since April 2009, PCT commissioning functions have moved into a contractual relationship with the provider PCTs, through a process of externalisation and by using the National Contract for Community Services.
The SSP as a provider service is therefore required to consider how we will support the provision of high quality services through working with providers, and also commissioners.
A decision was made in October 2009 by SSP Board to separate the provider focused functions from the commissioning functions of the SSP. A closed tender process was conducted in February 2010 to identify a suitable host for the provider focused services, where Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) were successful in proposing a business proposal which was signed off by the Boards of the south west London PCTs. It was also agreed that the commissioning functions of SSP continue to be hosted by NHS Wandsworth.’