A group of GPs have officially taken over the commissioning of healthcare services in Merton.

Merton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) launched on April 1 following a radical NHS shake up which has seen the abolishment of primary care trusts (PCTs) under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Six CCGs have been set up in south London representing all GP practices in their area who will now be responsible for planning and buying many NHS services for their patients.

Merton CCG, which takes over from the Sutton and Merton PCT, has been working in shadow form since its formation in November 2011.

It will work as part of Merton Council's health and wellbeing board bringing elected representatives together with healthcare professionals.

Dr Howard Freeman, Merton CCG’s clinical chairman, has worked as a GP in Raynes Park for the last 30 years and believes the changes are good news for the people of Merton.

He said: "For the first time they have a health organisation which is solely focused on Merton.

"It’s not looking after Sutton and Merton as the last one did or Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth as the one before it - it is just about the needs of the people in Merton."

Merton CCG represents the borough’s 25 GP practices which have been divided into three areas; East Merton, West Merton and Raynes Park, who will be responsible for the commissioning of about 80 percent of healthcare services in Merton.

Dr Freeman said: "There will be no obvious changes at all and there are no plans to change the range of services available, so people should be reassured.

"Any future changes would have to go through a full process.

"The Merton CCG is a statutory body set up in law and has to do a number of things including working in partnership with the London Borough of Merton and engaging with the people in Merton.

"It has to have a board which oversees the whole organisation and that board has members of the public on it and does not have a majority of GPs.

"Being a membership organisation of GPs they see lots of people everyday so they bring to the CCG the views of the public."

Services commissioned by the CCGs will include "secondary services" you would expect to find in a district general hospital like St Helier or Kingston, mental health services, community services and district nurses.

Last year, the NHS produced this video in which Dr Howard Freeman explains the makeup of Merton Clinical Commissioning Group

CCGs will not commission specialist hospital services, such as heart surgery, or dentists, pharmacies and optometrists which will be commissioned by what is now NHS England.

Councillor Linda Kirby, Merton Council cabinet member for adult social care and health, said: "The most important thing is integration of the mental, social and physical health services, so everybody is getting together and looking at how they can work more collectively.

"If you can have an arrangement where everyone is talking to one another and they have agreed approaches then its likely that the patient will get a better outcome because everyone will understand what one another is doing."

Speaking more widely on the abolishment of PCT's and the nationwide NHS reforms, Coun Kirby added: "I think they could have given the GPs the role and maintained those structures without dismantling all the PCTs, lots of people losing their jobs and spending a fortune.

"I have not been happy about what they have done and how they have done it and there have been no test pilots.

"But were we are now we have arrived at I am confident that we are all keen to work as a team and hope that will continue."

Collectively, south London CCGs will also make the decision on whether to go out to public consultation on the Better Services Better Value Review which is seeking to close accident and emergency and maternity units at two hospitals, including St Helier. Merton CCG will put forward it’s preference at their next meeting on May 16. 

Dr Howard Freeman: Factfile

• Studied at Cambridge University and University College London Hospital.

• Qualified as a general practitioner in 1979.

• Began his career as a doctor working at surgeries in Tooting in 1981 before moving to his most recent surgery in Durham Road, Raynes Park.

• During the early 1980s, Dr Freeman worked to set up and expand Dr Freeman and Partners which is now one of the largest GP practice groups in south west London with five surgeries in Raynes Park, Tooting and Clapham.

• Since the mid 1980s Dr Freeman has worked part time as an NHS manager and has worked on many steering groups in the last 25 years having chaired his Local Medical Council, represented his region on the BMA Council and helped to found, and was an Executive Member of, the National Association of Primary Care.

• Dr Freeman was involved in the creation of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) having sat as joint chairman for a group which went on to introduce the first wave of PCTs, and was joint chair of the Professional Executive Committee of Sutton & Merton PCT from 2000. 

• He was NHS South West London Joint Medical Director and Joint Associate Medical Director, Primary & Community Care for NHS London. 

• He is currently chairman of the Merton Clinical Commissioning Group and chairman of the London Clinical Commissioning Council and has also sat as Joint Medical Director of the Better Services Better Value Review since 2011 as part of NHS south west London

• Has worked as a GP for the last 30 years in Raynes Park at his Durham Road surgery, which he has since left having taken on the role of chairman of Merton Clinical Commissioning Group.

Merton Clinical Commissioning Group’s governing body

• Dr Howard Freeman - Chairman

• Peter Derrick - Lay Member, Chair of the Audit Committee and Vice Chair

• Eleanor Brown - Chief Officer

• Mary Clarke - Independent Nurse Member

• Kay Eilbert - Public Health Director

• Clare Gummett - Lay Member, Patient and Public Engagement Lead

• Dr Geoff Hollier - GP Clinical Board Member

• Karen McKinley - Chief Finance Officer

• Professor Stephen Powis - Secondary Care Consultant