Minney.org Ltd

Did you read Windmill 2009?

 it makes really fascinating reading.  The Windmill series of Exercises gets experts from a whole variety of backgrounds: different parts of NHS, local authorities, independent providers, patients, users and Trust governors, Department of Health, all to play themselves in a scenario looking at "what could happen if"

It's always fascinating to go to a national conference (as long as you don't do this often)

the problem
PCTs have a requirement to get GP practices engaged with the commissioning process, for two reasons:

• engagement at grass-roots level, being seen to consult
• GPs have the biggest effect on the cost of service delivery, as they are the ones making a decision early on in the patient pathway whether a patient should use the hospital (generally expensive if the treatment is appropriate for a community pathway) or alternative pathways (generally cheaper if they are available, but someone has to decide whether to set them up and if so, how to do so)