How we make decisions
NHS Birmingham East and North is committed to involving the communities it serves in the decisions it takes. Decisions are made through the following means.
- The trust involves public and patients through a range of Patient and Public Involvement activities
- Regular public consultations take place
- Decisions are taken at the Trust Board. Board meetings are open to the public.
In order to achieve the trust’s goals and principles, NHS Birmingham East and North has also developed the following investment decision-making process.
Our investment decision-making process
As we live longer and scientific knowledge and technology advance, the trust has to use the NHS’s resources responsibly and fairly. To make the best use of taxpayers’ money, primary care trusts operate across England as the commissioners of healthcare for their identified population.
Primary care trusts (PCTs) work with partners to make sure that health services such as hospitals, community and general practitioner (GP) services are available. In Birmingham, there are three primary care trusts. Of these, NHS Birmingham East and North invests over £650 million in such services on behalf of 440,000 people across east and north Birmingham.
Decision making at NHS Birmingham East and North
NHS Birmingham East and North is responsible for making decisions about investing in new, existing and/or additional services.
Some of these decisions are informed by the Department of Health.
For example, there are guiding principles on how PCTs should improve the consistency and quality of decision making on medicines. Other decisions are guided by local needs.
NHS Birmingham East and North uses its funds to meet these requirements and to meet our own key objectives and priorities, which have been informed by conversations with public, patients and staff, as well as extensive research. We have set out what we need to do to achieve these objectives in our long-term strategic plan.
Our role is to make decisions on your behalf on how the resources available are used. This may involve investing in new services, but also may require us to stop investing in services or treatments which are outdated because of new treatments, or are found to be ineffective.
Until now, our decision making process has been built on having a clear purpose and goals alongside a long term commissioning plan.
Decision making criteria
When deciding on what to fund, the group considers the following:
- Will the proposed service help patients recover their health?
- Is the service available to all the population?
- How many people will the service cover, if not aimed at the whole population?
- Does the cost of this service represent value for money when compared to other services?
- Will patients value the service?
- Can the service be set up and see patients in a reasonable timescale?
- Will clinicians refer to the service and will patients use the service?
- What alternatives are available?
The above criteria will be refined as we develop further our priority setting approach. Comments on these criteria would be welcomed. Email involvement@benpct.nhs.uk.
How you can help us with the decision making process
Our challenge is to provide services for the whole population, as well as funding services for individuals. NHS Birmingham East and North is keen to hear from interested individuals about getting involved in discussions on the priorities that are set out in our strategic plan (see above).
If you would like to be involved, please email involvement@benpct.nhs.uk.
Individual funding requests
There are times when individuals – usually through their GP – request a service or drug which the primary care trust does not routinely commission. This can be down to many reasons; for example, a drug is not licensed, or clinical evidence to support the service or drugs use is not reliable enough.
These individual funding requests (sometimes you may hear them called individual case requests – they are the same thing) are small in number, but do occur during any year.
Our individual funding requests policy and process involves a panel of clinicians who review each request, and make decisions based on a range of criteria, which includes some of the decision making criteria above. Details of the criteria are set out in the individual funding requests policy. Note that this policy is subject to review in light of the introduction of the NHS Constitution.
There are times when the trust refuses an individual funding request and this is always a difficult situation. We will provide a detailed response on the reason for the decision, including the criteria which was considered to judge that individual case.
Patients can appeal against the decision if they feel unhappy with the outcome. Further resources will be available on this page in the coming months.
Please do take the opportunity to e-mail your comments about what we are trying to do and please consider getting involved in the discussion on setting priorities.
Get involved
To get involved email involvement@benpct.nhs.uk
