Specialised Services Commissioning Team

NHS Birmingham East and North hosts the West Midlands Specialised Services Commissioning Team, which commissions specialised services on behalf of the primary care trusts across the West Midlands region.

Specialised services are usually high cost, low volume interventions and treatments that are not provided by every hospital. They include specialised mental health services, cardiac surgery, treatment for very rare cancers, haemophilia services and neonatal services.

Key achievements for 2009/2010 include:

• The introduction of the West Midlands Paediatric Retrieval Service which despatches specially trained doctors and nurses to provide specialist intensive care for critically ill children before, during and after their transfer to an available paediatric intensive care bed.
• Commenced the production of a region-wide strategy for children of the West Midlands to receive high quality, safe and most technologically advanced surgical services. Over 50 surgeons and anaesthetists and other key health professionals worked together at a deliberative event to fast-track the strategy.
• The development of a Secure Services strategy for the next five years to ensure that people from the West Midlands with complex specialised mental health needs can access the most appropriate services at the right time and as close to home as possible at the right price.

For more information email: info@wmsc.nhs.uk or visit www.wmsc.westmidlands.nhs.uk.