Individual Funding Requests (IFR)
Interim arrangements for individual funding requests (for treatment not routinely commissioned)
The Health and Care Act 2022 dissolved Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and transferred statutory functions (duties and powers) to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) on 1 July 2022. ICBs now have a statutory responsibility for commissioning services for the population within available resources.
The Health and Care Act also transferred all statutory function policies from CCGs to ICBs on 1 July 2022, which has highlighted a variation in clinical commissioning policies across the geographic areas of Humber and North Yorkshire.
The ICB recognises that the CCGs undertook significant and robust authorisation processes to develop local policies for local populations. Adopting a single policy is not always desirable or achievable quickly, for example due to differences in provision and local GP knowledge about service availability. There is a statutory duty to engage with the public on matters of proposed service change.
An interim approach has been adopted by the ICB, using commissioning statements and policy statements aligned to CCG areas as they were on the 30 June 2022. Alternative arrangements which seek to remove variation for patients cannot be achieved for the reasons outlined above. An extension has been agreed for all current clinical policies to 30 September 2024 to align review dates.
A clinically and professionally led group has been established by the ICB, comprised of experts from former CCGs, and GPs representing each local area, to lead the review of all clinical policies. This group is working to a review programme and aims to prepare commissioning policies for approval taking a phased approach.
Please see the below for links to the commissioning statements/policies aligned to CCG areas which are being used in the interim:
Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, and North East Lincolnshire CCGs have worked together to align their clinical commissioning policy statements across the Humber area to reduce the variation in the content and implementation of adopted policies.
HUMBER CLINICAL COMMISSIONING POLICY STATEMENTS
For requests which relate to medicines and devices please refer to the relevant formulary:
Please note the lists of commissioning policy statements above are not exhaustive of all interventions not routinely commissioned. For any medical procedure or treatment that is not routinely commissioned where there is not a specific policy statement, a request via the IFR process must still be made.