CCG Boards meet together for first time

The Boards of West Essex CCG, East and North Hertfordshire CCG and Herts Valleys CCG met together for the first time in January.

The CCGs, which form part of the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) are making plans for the second joint meeting to be held in public in March.

This first gathering of the CCGs was held as a private meeting to test out this new way of working, before welcoming local people to observe. As staff continue to focus on managing the very intense pressures, and on the crucially important COVID-19 vaccination programme roll-out, there was a vast agenda to get through.

While the CCGs were unable to offer a public Board meeting in January, we wanted to give an outline of what was covered and what members and Chairs of all three CCGs discussed.  Among the topics were:

• the current winter pressures on the hospitals and other health and care services in the area;
• mental health services update;  
• the wellbeing of staff.

The Boards also heard details of and discussed the fast-paced COVID-19 vaccination programme, plans for further vaccination sites and highlighted the work that has started to address health inequalities and the need to broaden access to vaccinations across the area.

Rob Gerlis, Chair of West Essex CCG, Prag Moodley, Chair of East and North Herts CCG and Nicholas Small, Chair of Herts Valley CCG, agreed that all three CCGs had been working closely together for some time now, so it was good to finally be able to cement that collaboration with a formal meeting together. They are looking forward to inviting members of the public to the first joint public Board meeting in March, where people will be able to see for themselves how the three CCGs are working together to offer joined up services and better patient-centred care.