This will definitely affect your authorisation...

I have a question for colleagues working in CCGs – how many times do you hear the phrase ‘this will affect your authorisation’?  Once a month? Once a week? More?  I think at present I hear this at least once a day.  So far this week the things that I have to do or else my authorisation will be affected are:  reconfigure 5 acute hospitals across the patch; ensure every GP practice in the county carries out Health Checks; lead the equality and diversity strategy for the county; land on the moon. I am dreading next week’s requirements!!

The issue seems to be one of control.  CCGs have in many places been given control, through the delegation of budgets.  Staff not working in CCGs feel the responsibility to deliver whatever their agenda is, but come up against people like me in CCGs who may have different ideas on what or how things should be done.  They need to find a way of influencing me, and at present it appears to be beating me with the ‘this will affect your authorisation’ stick!

As CCGs we have a tendency to protect our independence.  At the same time we do have new responsibilities and we do have to rise to them.  We can’t pick and choose the responsibilities we want, but have to take on the whole range.  We do however have the freedom to decide how we do things and how we prioritise things.  Both of these may be (and are likely to be) different to what has gone before.  A key challenge for us as CCGs is how we build confidence in those who are delegating responsibility to us that the way we want to work will be successful.  The more we do this, the less others will feel the need to try and control us.  So maybe I will take it as a marker of my success when I start to be told what will affect my authorisation slightly less often.