Our partners and providers

Healthcare providers

We work closely with a range of groups and organisations to commission and provide health and care services in Lincolnshire.

We commission services from a number of local organisations, including:

Local councils

We work closely with local councils to ensure that health and social care services are as effective as possible. The councils also employs public health specialists who promote healthy lifestyles and prevent ill health.

Lincolnshire County Council – Lincolnshire County Council & Public Health Lincolnshire

There are seven district Councils in Lincolnshire:

Lincolnshire Prescribing and Clinical Effectiveness Forum (PACEF)

Lincolnshire Prescribing and Clinical Effectiveness Forum (PACEF) is a strategic advisory network. PACEF has the responsibility for ensuring the cost-effective use of medicines and other healthcare interventions and their functional integration into healthcare delivery across Lincolnshire. Representation on the group is comprised of leading professionals from Lincolnshire ICB, ULHT, LPFT, LCHS and Lincolnshire County Council.

Healthwatch Lincolnshire

Healthwatch Lincolnshire is the independent consumer champion for health and social care in Lincolnshire, putting patients at the heart of health and social care services. Their role is to give local people a voice to influence and challenge how health and social care services are provided locally. Healthwatch provide the ICB with regular feedback from patients on their experiences of accessing NHS services, and assist the ICB to carry out surveys and consultations when we are making key decisions about the services we commission.

Health and Wellbeing Board

The Health and Wellbeing Board is a forum which brings together key leaders from the NHS, public health and care systems to work together to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Lincolnshire and reduce health inequalities. Board members collaborate to understand communities’ needs, agree priorities and encourage commissioners to work in a more joined up way, and the Board has a duty to encourage integrated working for the purpose of advancing the health and wellbeing of the people of Lincolnshire.

Lincolnshire Research Observatory

Lincolnshire Research Observatory (LRO) support the ICB to access intelligence on the local population, health, the economy and many other topics.

Voluntary Centre Services

Voluntary Centre Services (VCS) supports volunteers and voluntary and community organisations across Lincolnshire and will often provide assistance to the ICB to ensure the voluntary/third sector are informed about local health services, and involved in any key decisions about we make about the services we commission.

NHS England

NHS England provides national leadership to ICBs. They also commission some specialist health services and primary care services such as dentists, pharmacists and opticians.

Commissioned services/providers

The ICB is responsible for planning and buying (commissioning) healthcare services to meet the needs of local people. The services we buy include GP services, Community services, Hospital services and Mental health services. In Lincolnshire, some of the main organisations that provide these include:

GP services – 82 member GP practices within the Lincolnshire ICB area

Mental health services – Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Hospital services

Community services – Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust

Care & Nursing Homes

How we hold providers to Account

Systems and processes to check the quality of services and patient opinion.

We use the following processes to check the Quality of Services:

  • Complaints, compliments and comments data
  • National Surveys such as Care Quality Commission Survey
  • Friends and Family Test results
  • Feedback provided by Healthwatch Lincolnshire
  • Local surveys
  • Quality Visits to providers
  • Listening Clinics
  • Contract Monitoring

Changes to services

When providers need to make a change to services, they are required to let commissioners know.  We will ask about their plans to engage and involve patients in their changes.  We would get involved in this process where this was appropriate or would request to see evidence of the involvement activity before any decisions about changes to services are made.

Involvement of the Locality, Quality and Equality teams

The involvement of our Locality Team, Quality Team and Equality Lead are really important when planning changes to health services.  Our Engagement Team works closely with both to ensure the ICB is asking the right questions, especially regarding people in our population who may find it harder to access our services, or take part in our engagement exercises.

Engagement Leads Meeting

The ICB and NHS providers in Lincolnshire are currently meeting every two weeks to find out what engagement work each organisation is doing, in order to work together as a health care system.  Each organisation also takes action based on the feedback received from patients and the public, as a result of our engagement work.

Our work with our GP practices

Since April 2016, it has been a contractual requirement for practices in England to have a Patient Participation Group (PPG), and to make reasonable effort that the group is representative of the practice population. (Guidance for GMS contract 2015/16).  We encourage all practices to have a Patient Participation Group, and provide support to practices with setting these up and attending their meetings to provide updates.