Incentivising integrated care: what role for commissioners?

^{Dr Martin McShane, Director of Commissioning and QIPP at NHS Lincolnshire, on the key principles of commissioning integrated services.}

This was a private breakfast roundtable to discuss the relationship between commissioning and the development of efficient, integrated care services, with a particular focus on the role of risks and incentives.

The discussion gave participants the opportunity to:

• Hear about new research on the experience of innovative NHS commissioners and how they used their role to integrate services and deliver higher performance;

• Explore the role of new commissioning organisations in the reformed NHS and how they might commission integrated and efficient care;

• Help inform the work being led by the Nuffield Trust and The King’s Fund on how integrated care might best be encouraged to develop in England through the current round of NHS reform.

The roundtable was chaired by Professor Steve Field, Chair of the NHS Future Forum with Martin McShane, Director of Commissioning and QIPP, NHS Lincolnshire cluster, providing his perspective on the contribution commissioners are making to further integration, and the pursuit of efficiency.

They were joined by Professor Chris Ham, Chief Executive, The King’s Fund and Dr Judith Smith, Head of Policy, Nuffield Trust, who relayed the main messages from their new research into the commissioning of integrated services. The full findings of their research were published in the research report and summary: Commissioning integrated care in a liberated NHS (Nuffield Trust, 2011).