Think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’ are dead, long live think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’

Think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’ are dead, long live think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_commissioning-compass-system-assessment-activity-7396449650750300160-1yVq

Think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’ are dead, long live think-pieces saying ‘commissioning is dead, long live strategic commissioning’

Strategic commissioning is back. The NHS framework puts ‘payor discipline’, segmentation, neighbourhood health, and new contractual forms on the table. Good.

But the bottleneck isn’t guidance. It is whether places have the governance to have honest conversations about trade-offs, whether our commissioning practice reaches beyond procurement into community development and front-line change. Whether the money flows across boundaries to where it reshapes the system. As well as who is to do this, and with what money…

You can start somewhere though:

Do you have a single, shared picture of need based on (FDP?) segmentation, lived experience, and what staff and communities say is actually getting in the way? Is it specific enough to choose two or three cohorts where prevention and coordination will reduce avoidable demand in-year, not just in 2030?

If you say you are commissioning for outcomes, have you done the hard thinking about the practical shape of the commissioning model?

Have you set out clear choices between, say, an alliance model, a neighbourhood model, a blended funding model, or a capability-building model?

Have you mapped the transition costs and risks so providers can survive the shift?

Are you investing in VCSE capacity and community development as outcome levers, or just treating them as small providers in a big-boy market?

Have you got a learning cadence that mixes outcomes, experience, and cost-to-serve, and that leads to contract and pathway tweaks monthly?

If the answer is ‘not yet’, you are not alone.

Start small and serious: use the Commissioning Compass to focus your commissioning improvement effort, and work on two full strategic commissioning options appraisals through formal partnership governance.

https://link.redquadrant.com/commissioningcompass

It is possible to be rigorous and humane at the same time. That is the point.