There are 211 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in place which organise the delivery of NHS services in England.
NARU has recognised that it is vital that the Governing Body and Operational Leadership Team members of these CCGs understand about the importance of the EPRR work that ambulance services do, so that they have greater understanding when making important local commissioning decisions.
Furthermore, as public bodies, CCGs now have legal responsibilities to ensure they commission resilient services under important legislation such as the Civil Contingencies Act. In short, the importance of being prepared and properly resourced locally must not be overlooked and will be unearthed in any post-event inquiry
To get the message across NARU is sending out a booklet to all CCGs containing some key facts for commissioners. The booklet accompanies copies of a new film, Specialist Ambulance Capabilities: Information for Commissioners, and together the aim is to provide some background about NARU and the national Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) capability, in order to help commissioners understand how emergency preparedness should be a key consideration when commissioning local services.
NARU Director Keith Prior says: “Major incidents don’t just happen in cities, they happen in towns and villages across the world and we need CCGs to remember this when planning for the worst. We hope our new suite of materials will help CCG members better understand the variety of resilience capabilities that exist in the ambulance service so that they continue to support and commission them whilst understanding the value for money they are getting.”
Download the booklet here, and watch the video here.
For more information contact Carl Rees.