What is commissioning services

Please review and correct the information below. What is commissioning? Commissioning levels Procurement Glossary of terms and abbreviations. Definition Commissioning is a broad concept and there are many definitions. This may mean exploring personal budget options but it could also mean working with individuals in residential settings to ensure that their personal needs and preferences are identified and met.

It is about self-directed support and enabling people to make their own decisions about what care and support they require to lead a full and independent life''.

The Institute for Public Care developed this diagram to explain the changing roles of councils in social care: [21]. Post 's Local authority as the purchaser of care, predominantly provided by others.

Post Local authority as the shaper of a care market where individuals purchase care and support. Increasingly, the role of councils has changed from providing and delivering social care services to making sure that good and different types of personalised support are available.

For an example of what retro-commissioning can do, download "Meeting the Energy Challenge" , which describes a project we did for Michigan State University. Re-commissioning is a commissioning process for buildings that have already been commissioned. The decision to re-commission may be triggered by a change in building use or ownership, the onset of operational problems, or some other need.

This is a comprehensive listing of projects that Peter Basso Associates has provided commissioning and retro-commissioning services. Commissioning is a part of overall building management. Duct leakage, heating and cooling waste, and lighting inefficiency are major issues that exist within any building infrastructure. Building commissioning helps resolve issues like these and leads to more sustainable buildings, lower operating expenses, and reduced energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

A typical building project features many contractors and sub-contractors, each of whom are focused solely on their portion of the project and will only conduct testing on the equipment for which they are directly responsible. A commissioning provider will test all equipment in an integrated manner to assess how well different systems and processes are functioning together.

Even the most well-designed and constructed buildings can benefit from commissioning, as providers will run a system through every operating scenario it will undergo during its lifetime and make sure that its actual operation complies with the owner's project requirements and basis of design. As system controls grow in complexity to meet increased interoperability, energy, and ventilation code requirements, accompanying value engineering and substitutions increasingly result in last-minute design changes that can have adverse and unintended impacts on building performance and energy usage.

The commissioning process is a safeguard against these unintended impacts. Building commissioning examines and fine-tunes building systems to assure that they are designed to operate in a reliable manner. It also looks at how mechanical and electrical systems are integrated with building management systems in order to deliver optimal performance and reduce energy consumption. Commissioning goes well beyond the standard scope of work for design and construction phases.

Identifying and correcting deficiencies during the commissioning process will not only deliver a far more functional building to the owner, it will provide long-term cost savings, reduce construction cost overruns, minimize construction schedule overruns, and reduce the number of issues an owner deals with during occupancy. One of the main reasons for retro-commissioning or re-commissioning is system degradation.

Buildings systems under-perform for several reasons:. Commissioning will result in lower operations and maintenance costs over the lifetime of a building.

According to the U. General Services Administration, 2 industry sources indicate the operating costs of a commissioned building range from 8 percent to 20 percent below that of a non-commissioned building. The one-time investment in commissioning for a building ranging from 0. Recent studies indicate that on average the operating and maintenance costs of a commissioned building range from 8 percent to 20 percent below that of a non-commissioned building.

Having a building commissioning plan in place is important. What is retro-comissioning of a building? Retro-commissioning can also provide significant operations and cost benefits, especially in buildings that exhibit high energy usage and comfort problems. Although your building has been commissioned initially, over time a building may have undergone renovations or usage may have changed, and issues common to older buildings start to creep in.

System calibrations start to falter, components get out of adjustment, making re-commissioning necessary. Changes in facilities staff necessitate training of new staff so that building operation is optimized. Every building will benefit from retro-commissioning or re-commissioning. As equipment and systems age, they will require more maintenance and upkeep to keep them operating at desired levels. While commissioning can help identify issues and areas of improvement, it can also assure that systems are functioning properly and are integrated together.

Commissioning authorities will also provide necessary training to building staff so that employees will have the knowledge and ability to maintain building systems and operations. Some of the key changes that have taken place, which are likely to characterise the development of commissioning over the next few years , are set out in the sections below.

This was intended to support a shift in investment from acute to primary and community services. NHS England recently set out plans to give local systems rather than just commissioners a greater say in how the specialised commissioning budget is spent in their area. Local areas can apply to take on greater responsibilities, although there is no single model for this and proposals are approved on a case-by-case basis.

Greater Manchester is an example of an area that has taken on greater responsibilities for commissioning a range of specialised services. CCGs are increasingly working together to commission services across their local populations and deliver economies of scale.

In many areas two or more CCGs are sharing staff or have shared management structures; most now share accountable officers. Some CCGs have established new governance arrangements to support joint commissioning, such as joint committees. These arrangements are often accompanied by the pooling of commissioning budgets. Some CCGs have gone further by formally merging with their neighbours into a single organisation.

Since CCGs were created in there have been 10 formal mergers , reducing their number to as at April More mergers have been proposed for , which — if approved — could further reduce CCGs numbers by a third.

Many CCGs and local authorities are also working together to support more integrated health and social care. Arrangements vary, ranging from joint working to the establishment of new governance and financial arrangements, including integrated commissioning boards and pooled budgets.

Some local authorities have transferred commissioning responsibilities to CCGs and vice versa, and some areas have made joint appointments across the two organisations — for example, in Tameside and Glossop, the CCG accountable officer is also the chief executive of the local authority. The Better Care Fund , a national programme designed to support integrated care, encourages CCGs and local authorities to work together, by pooling health and social care budgets.

NHS England is also encouraging local authorities to work closely with the NHS to commission joined-up public health services. Initially 44 STPs were established to agree system-wide priorities and plan collectively for local needs. In some areas, STPs have evolved into ICSs , a closer form of collaboration in which the NHS and local authorities take on greater responsibility for managing resources and performance.

The development of these system-level planning structures is one of the drivers behind the changes to commissioning, such as joint working and mergers, described above.

STPs and ICSs are not statutory bodies, and accountability remains within the individual organisations. In most cases ICSs cover the same geographical area as the STP from which they evolved, although this is not always the case. In some places, devolution is being used to support system-wide approaches to commissioning. The most prominent example of this is Greater Manchester , where CCGs, local authorities and other local bodies have come together to take responsibility for the entire local health and care budget.

Other areas, including Surrey Heartlands , London and Cornwall have also agreed devolution deals, but they are not on the same scale as the Greater Manchester deal. There are also examples of providers taking on a greater role in commissioning and it is likely that as new integrated provider models develop, this will start to happen more frequently.

For example, in some parts of the country, NHS England has devolved commissioning responsibility and budgets direct to provider organisations for specialised mental health services, for example, some child and adolescent mental health services.

Since , commissioners and providers have been working together to develop new care models that bring together local NHS organisations from different parts of the health system to provide a range of services and deliver more integrated care for patients.