About
Care Commissioning Solutions was formed to provide a range of services across the sector to different stakeholders bringing years of expertise in change and project management, commissioning large scale services, contracting solutions, procurement, quality management and expertise. Care Commissioning Solutions can provide individually focused solutions to both provider and commissioner organisations.
Care Commissioning Solutions was formed by Ian McCartney following a 20 year career in health and social care. Starting in Care Management, Ian gained experience across a range of service user groups who received both residential and domiciliary care. He then joined a Registered Social Landlord, working closely with the supported and sheltered housing functions and helping shape organisational policies and procedures.
In 2001 Ian returned to social services to help introduce a major strategic policy change, setting up contractual relationships for hundreds of providers and services under the Supporting People Programme. This change initiative involved translating strategic policy into operational understanding across a wide number of client groups and stakeholders, bringing together 12 district councils, the county council, elected members and senior managers in a programme with a budget of nearly £30m.
He took the programme into the contract and quality monitoring phase, decommissioning and commissioning services and managing large scale procurement exercises, bringing the spend down to £24m whilst demonstrably improving quality of provision.
His next challenge was to work within a small commissioning team on the Campus Re-provision Programme. This project involved the transfer of services to nearly 100 people with a Learning Disability and 300 staff under TUPE, from direct NHS provision to the private sector where the contracts would be managed by the Local Authority. Ian worked again with senior management teams across the NHS and Social Services, managing complex relationships successfully, including elected members. He was responsible for the contracting and procurement of all services with a yearly value of £16m and the integration into mainstream business for the Local Authority.
Following the successful completion of the project he went into the private sector as the Director of Quality for a Learning Disability provider organisation. Following a national audit of services and processes, he implemented a Quality Assurance tool and process that brought together Local Authority and Care Quality Commission (CQC) outcome expectations, nationally recognised standards, a robust quality monitoring tool and their own internal values. They were one of only two provider organisations to achieve the highest quality rank awarded for Campus services.
Ian also has experience in Operational Management of a number of residential care homes, domiciliary care agencies and supported living and independence services. He is an experienced CQC inspector and can provide advice and guidance to all regulated provider organisations.
The health and social care landscape is going through a transition period where the only certainty is change. Budgets are under pressure as never before as austerity measures bite and the NHS comes to terms with radical changes in the commissioning infrastructure with new stakeholders emerging with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) working through a variety of Commissioning Support Services (CSS) that will become more arms length over time and will be competing for business.