Yorkshire NHS Organisations Come Together To Form £90m Business

Two Yorkshire NHS organisations merge to become an £90m business supporting a wide range of NHS and other customers across the region.

NHS North Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support Unit (NYHCSU) is joining forces with NHS West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit (WSYB CSU) to form NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS). The new organisation employs 1200 people and has bases in York, Willerby, Bradford and Sheffield.

Commissioning support units were formed as part of the 2012 NHS reforms primarily to provide commissioning and business support for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), the organisations which plan and pay for local health services.

As well providing ‘back office’ functions like HR, IT, finance and governance, YHCS supports its 23 local CCGs with services such as communications and engagement, research, business intelligence, and service redesign, to help CCGs to get the best outcomes for their local populations. They also provide clinical support around continuing healthcare assessments and personal health budgets.

From Halifax to Hull and from Scarborough to Sheffield, YHCS’s CCG clients are commissioning services for 5.6m people in Yorkshire and the Humber, via 14 hospital trusts, seven mental health trusts, one of the largest ambulance trusts in the UK, and four organisations delivering community healthcare services.

YHCS also works directly with many of the 734 GP practices in the region, providing their IT, supporting them to develop their practices, helping them to implement national initiatives like the Friends and Family Test and advising them on federating with other practices.

The organisation also works for a variety of other customers, including health providers, local councils and NHS England.

Heading up YHCS is Managing Director Maddy Ruff, who has been working in the NHS for over twenty years and has held a variety of board level positions since 2004, including director of primary care at Hambleton and Richmondshire Primary Care Trust, executive director of commissioning and service improvement for NHS Hull and executive director of commissioning development for the NHS Humber Cluster. Most recently she established and led NYHCSU.

She explains:

“This is an exciting move for us, as we are now one of the largest commissioning support service suppliers nationally. This move also allies us with the Yorkshire and Humber region, an area which has always been innovative and forward-thinking, and now has a global reputation. Our vision as a merged organisation is to deliver truly transformational change and we are well-placed, both geographically and economically, to do this.”

She is quick to praise her 1200 staff:

“By combining our strengths we’re able to offer our customers a wider choice of services and skills, from a broader pool of talented, expert and creative staff from across our region. Our staff are our unique selling point – they have mostly come from within the NHS, working in the region – and they know what our customers, stakeholders and, above all, local patients want and need.”

YHCS is now looking forward to its first public engagement as the new organisation, at this week’s Royal College of GPs exhibition in Liverpool.