The Institute of Commissioning Professionals has created a National Commissioning Consortium to help GPs fulfil their new remit of commissioning health services in their local areas.

IoCP director Doug Forbes said evidence suggested that while some GPs had some experience of the commissioning process, most had none.

So some IoCP members had volunteered to join the new Consortium to offer advice and assistance to GPs on the commissioning process.

Part of this remit will be to educate them in the value that civil society organisations can bring to delivery of health services and the benefits of supporting local service innovation.

Forbes said the National Commissioning Consortium will carry out training needs analysis, provide training and briefing sessions to GPs, offer advice on establishing GP Commissioning Consortia and dealing with councils, and deliver guidance on the Compact, systems specifications and benchmarking.

He said the Institute wanted to avoid the situation that had become common in the Department of Work and Pensions where contracts had been awarded to very large providers and funding had not flowed through to local groups.

But conversely there has also been laudable efforts by some local authorities to eschew larger facilities management contracts and commission smaller providers in order to keep the money within their local area. The National Commissioning Consortium would encourage this approach among GPs, Forbes said.

Around 60 per cent of the Institute’s members are employed by Primary Care Trusts, 20 per cent by local authorities and 20 per cent are in the voluntary sector, consultancy, or other service providers.