[4] Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust established a joint board in July 2017 to “gradually unite clinical and non-clinical services" - a step towards the creation of an accountable care system.
Cllr Andy Virr, the Conservative health spokesperson, said that kind words regarding working together were vacuous without a commitment to integrate and combine budgets.
[6] Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group was placed under legal directions by NHS England in December 2015.
Keith Pringle, who had previously worked with CCGs in Hampshire and at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was employed at a cost of £396,000 in 2015/6 including agency fees.
[8] Cornwall was one of the four areas chosen to trial the integration of specialised commissioning, previously run by NHS England centrally, in September 2016.
[11] In December 2017 it was announced that Cornwall Council was to take over the functions of Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group as part of the development of an accountable care system for the county.
The longer term plan is that the CCG becomes a department within Cornwall Council and we will buy services from the providers.”[12] There are 69 GP practices in the county.
The Out-of-hours service contract, worth £8m a year, from 2015 was awarded to Devon Doctors, a GP led social enterprise, and Kernow Health CIC, a community interest company run by member practices.
Cornwall Air Ambulance was the first dedicated helicopter emergency medical service operational in the United Kingdom.
[21] Cornwall had 134 patients, the second-highest number in England, waiting more than 12 months for treatment in November 2018 [22] Staff at South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust reported 29 serious incidents in Cornwall between October and December 2021 during an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
They also found a “lack of joined up communication across the system has resulted in people facing lengthy delays as they wait for assessment and treatment”.
Nearly half of the trust’s community beds were occupied by patients who were medically fit to leave but waiting to be placed in their next care setting.