Influencing local decision makers

A changing environment

A new environment for health decision making has emerged as a result of NHS reforms across England. Cancer Research UK is currently exploring new ways of using our expertise in policy, data and information provision to support local health decision makers and cancer commissioners across the country.    

The key changes relevant to our influencing work are:

• Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) are being replaced by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). These will be led by doctors, with other professionals’ input. They will formally take over commissioning health services in their area in April 2013 when PCTs are abolished, but are already being created in preparation. There are currently 212 CCGs across England, and we are monitoring their progress closely.
• Responsibility for public health is moving from the NHS into Local Authorities. As a part of this change Local Authorities are being asked to set up Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs). HWBs will bring together representatives from the Local Authority and the local CCGs to work together to identify and tackle the health needs of their local population. These boards will lead on the development of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy. JSNAs will be the means by which local leaders work together to understand and agree the needs of all local people, with the joint health and wellbeing strategy setting the priorities for collective action. They are also being created in preparation and will formally take on their responsibilities in April 2013.

How are we responding?

Cancer Research UK is closely monitoring the changes and taking a number of steps to respond to them. In particular, we are exploring new ways of using our expertise in policy, data and information provision to help Health and Wellbeing Boards and Clinical Commissioning Groups to improve cancer outcomes in their area. So far we have:

• Created and distributed a briefing to help local areas to carry out their JSNA (PDF 146kb), pointing them in the right direction for the best data on cancer.
• Developed a set of key messages for Commissioners of cancer services (PDF 435kb).
• Produced local statistics on a range of different measures at local authority and constituency level in England and shared these with MPs and Directors of Public Health.
• Worked closely with the Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Network to organise a regional Cancer Summit at our Liverpool Cancer Research UK Centre on Tuesday 18th September 2012. This event brought together around 70 Councillors, public health officials, Clinical Commissioning Group representatives and patient representatives from across Merseyside and Cheshire to share and discuss their cancer priorities and approaches to tackling cancer. The event consisted of a series of presentations, round table discussions and panel discussions.

We hope that these resources will prove useful in planning local services to meet the needs of cancer patients and to tackle the burden of cancer. If you have any feedback on these documents we would love to hear from you on publicaffairs@cancer.org.uk.

We are also investigating how we can have even more impact on the local level and trialling a number of approaches. More details on this work will follow on these pages.