NHS commissioners must learn from external consultants or lose local skills

What do external consultants from private and not-for-profit companies offer healthcare commissioners? A qualitative study of knowledge exchange
BMJ Open 2015;5:e006558

• A study of eight case studies (including 4 CCGs and 4 external providers) which examined the impact of external providers on the quality of commissioning concluded that “NHS commissioning will be disadvantaged if commissioners both fail to learn in the short term from the knowledge of external providers and in the longer term lose local skills. Knowledge exchange mechanisms are a vital component of commissioning and should be embedded in external provider contracts.”