Well locally, I have to say, so far so good.
Nothing much changes LOL in that some of the same people are still going to do much the same roles within the CCG and the people who are in the roles that didn't actually exist before (like the Lay representatives) have been working with both the PCT and the CCG governing GPs (who were VOTED in by their peers so if GPs don't like what the CCG is doing then they have only themselves to blame for electing the wrong people IMHO) to bring 'ours' to fruition.
Now admittedly it's still quite big - but only the 20-something biggest in the country - over 400k people and a spend of over ?500m - so perhaps 'we' took it a bit more seriously or maybe we have the right sort of people or whatever, I don't know - only time will tell that and I really think it will be interesting! CCG website launches on 25 April so we'll see who the Faces are - the ones people don't know yet that is, cos eg none of 'my' GPs are on it.
Our Lay bloke is good though, I like him - and he seems to be singing from the same hymnsheet as my brain is. He was in Social Housing and then a Housing Assoc, which he landed up as CEO of - so he knows all about the deprivation areas in health, housing and everything else - and is committed to User Involvement and isn't letting anyone get away with anything but at the mo until April first he's said to me in so many words that he's been wearing his velvet gloves. But on April 2nd, unless they Do It Right - they'll soon find the Iron Fist underneath em .......
I sent him the NHS thing about Local Diabetes Networks which he said he'd looked for already, cos he knew about it, but hadn't been able to find a link to - and I said well I dunno where the NHS have buried the thing matey - but it's on the DUK website as plain as daylight and you'll find it here blah blah.
